


Sinking Hearts, Broken Bones

by spacebanes



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Juno Steel Needs a Hug, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Alteration, Platonic Cuddling, Psychological Torture, Rita & Juno Steel are Best Friends, Slow Burn, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, just a whole lot of angst, space mafia, there's a space mafia, you heard me right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebanes/pseuds/spacebanes
Summary: Peter Nureyev had stolen many important things during his time as a thief, but never anything as important as this. He wasn't stealing just anything this time, no, this time he was stealing back Juno Steel. It had been nine months since anyone had heard from Juno, and a lot can go wrong in nine months, especially when a certain detective is involved. They were all about to learn that the hard way.
Relationships: Aurinko Crime Family & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 181
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them :)

“You have one shot at this Ransom,” Vespa’s voice came through his comms. “So don’t screw it up.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Peter grumbled, the response more for himself than anyone else. He adjusted his suit jacket for what felt like the hundredth time as he weaved through the hall, a drink tray balanced on one hand and the other twitching nervously at his side.

Nervousness wasn’t something Peter Nureyev was all too familiar with. Sure, he’d felt it a few times in his life, but never on a heist, and never to this extent. Vespa had been right though, he had exactly one chance to do this and there were a million and one things that could go wrong in the process. He had never participated in a heist with this much at stake before. Peter had stolen jewels and money and weapons of mass destruction, going through the most complicated plans his mind could come up with and knowing that everything would go well. This time he didn’t have that, and he was stealing something infinitely more important than anything he had before. Peter was going to take back Juno Steel.

It started with a call. It was an impossible call that shouldn’t have been able to happen, but it came through on Rita’s comms so Peter didn’t question it. Impossible seemed to cling to Rita like a second skin, and situations like this were starting to become part of the regular routine. The ringing of her comms still made them all jump, though, and Buddy demanded she put it on speaker when it was determined the call wasn’t coming from either Vespa or Juno, who were the only two people not in the room that should have been able to contact her. 

“Hello, you’ve reached Rita’s phone, this is Rita!” She answered.

“Rita,” The person on the other side responded, and Peter finally got to match a voice to a name he’d only heard a few times before but could tell the importance of. “It’s Mick, Juno’s best friend!”

Rita did a very poor job of masking the way her eyes lit up at that. Buddy cast a glance in Peter’s direction, but he didn’t know any more than she did, so he could only shrug in response.

“Mista Mercury! It’s so nice to hear from you. Oh! And happy birthday, by the way!” She was smiling even though Mick couldn’t see it, which Juno always insisted was ridiculous but Peter found rather endearing. 

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was calling to talk about, actually.” Mick said, and Rita’s face dropped.

“Mista Mercury, I hope you’re not calling to invite us to a party because you know we won’t be able to go and I’ll just feel guilty.” The words came out slightly rushed but still making sense in a way that could only happen with Rita. Mick laughed a little, though the noise fell slightly off at the end.

“No, that’s not it. Jay told me you guys were leaving Mars and, I mean, whatever he needs to do to get through the grieving process, right? I’m not gonna judge.”

Peter and Buddy looked at each other again at the mention of a grieving process. Peter hadn’t know Juno had lost someone before he left Mars, and judging by the look on her face, neither did Buddy. He couldn’t help the small spike of jealousy that flared inside of him knowing that Mick Mercury knew something this important that he didn’t, but he brushed that away quickly for how absurd it was. Mick had been Juno’s best friend for years, he knew that. It was only reasonable that he knew about all his major life developments, and Rita didn’t seem at all surprised about that, so clearly she had known too. Peter just didn’t have that level of trust back yet, and he had to deal with that, even if it stung a bit.

“I was actually calling about Jay. Is he there right now?” Mick asked.

Rita shook her head a little bit as she answered. “No, Mista Steel is out on a job right now. Why? I can take a message if you want though! I’m really great at taking messages, Mista Mercury, let me tell you! The boss would be completely lost without me.”

“Well, it’s just,” Mick said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “He didn’t call me for my birthday, and I got worried. And I know he’s busy and all, but he’s never forgotten to call me before, even when he was doing some really important cases, so I guess I overreacted a bit. Sorry.”

Somehow the idea of Juno Steel calling his best friend on his birthday every year without fail seemed unlikely to Peter, though he supposed he didn’t know Juno well enough to be completely sure. It just seemed to go so against the picture of him he’d built up in his mind, the stoic and uncaring detective he made himself out to be not seeming like the type to care about things as trivial as birthdays. The uncaring part might have been more for his own benefit, though, to make him feel slightly better about being tossed to the side as easily as he was. 

“He’s really good with birthdays, isn’t he? I don’t think he’s ever forgotten mine either. Well, I’m sure Mista Steel has a very good reason that he hasn’t called and that he will as soon as he gets back to the ship. Call me again if he doesn’t and I’ll knock some sense into him!” Rita’s curls bounced a bit along with her body as she spoke, her words animated in a way Peter didn’t think he could tolerate from anyone but her. 

“Yeah, yeah okay. Tell all your space friends I say hi, by the way!” Mick sounded happier than he had before, less worried at the very least, though he seemed like the type of person that didn’t worry about things for long. 

“Mista Mercury says hi!” Rita said, turning to relay the message to all of them as if they couldn’t hear everything Mick was saying.

“We heard.” Jet said simply, but Rita didn’t seem to pay much attention to him. 

“Well I gotta get going Mista Mercury, important space business, you know how it is, but I’ll make sure the boss calls you as soon as he’s back and well rested!” She didn’t say a proper goodbye or give Mick the chance to say one before she hung up.

Nobody said anything for a long moment before Buddy finally spoke up. “Why is someone you knew on Mars still in contact with you?”

“It’s just Mick,” Rita said it as if that justified everything. “And he really cares about Mista Steel. I don’t want either of them to worry about the other too much, especially when it’s so easy for them to get into contact with each other through me! And I promise nobody else can call me, it’s just him, and he was really worried about Mista Steel when we left, what with the whole O'Flaherty thing! I know I shouldn’t have, but it felt like the right thing to do. I’m sorry.”

Her voice dropped off at the end, quieter than Peter had ever heard her before, and the change in Buddy’s feelings came almost instantly with it. “I’m not mad, darling. Quite the opposite, really. Juno needs as much support as he can get, after all. There was clearly a very good reason behind your decision, and as long as you’re positive Mick isn’t a threat to our security it won’t pose a problem.”

Rita perked back up quickly after that. Peter wanted to ask her what Mick was talking about, what Juno was grieving over and who O’Flaherty was. It wasn’t his place and he knew it, but he couldn’t silence the small part of him that wanted to be there for the detective, to know what was going on in that complicated head of his and help him work it out if he could. It didn’t really seem like Rita would be all that willing to spill all of Juno’s secrets, and before he could spend an adequate amount of time contemplating it things started going wrong. 

“Jet!” Vespa’s voice came through the comms, more panic in it than Peter thought he’d ever heard from Vespa. More emotion in general than he was used to hearing from her. “Jet, we need you, and fast!” 

“What happened?” Peter asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

“We don’t really have time to explain right now, Ransom!” Juno shouted, his voice just barely audible over the sound of blaster fire. Peter felt his heart leap into his throat at the thought of the detective in danger. “Just get here!”

Jet was out of his seat faster than should have been possible for a man his size, and everything that came next was a blur in Peter’s memory. It all happened far too fast for him to process everything enough to commit it to memory, but he remembered a lot of shouting and blood on the deck of the ship and half carrying a sobbing Rita back to her room when she had calmed down enough to move. The details were fuzzy, but one thing stood out above all else, a fact he didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget even if he tried. Vespa had made it back, but she’d come back blood splattered and without Juno. His comms were unreachable after that, and his last message replayed in Peter’s head every day afterwards.

“Just get here.” He had said, and that was the last anyone heard from Juno steel for nine long months.

His absence struck the crew like a crack in their very foundation. Rita, the poor soul, was beside herself for the first few weeks. It was understandable, really. Juno was her oldest and best friend, and she cared about him more than anyone else in the world. Peter couldn’t help but feel guilty when he considered that this is probably how she was when he swept Juno off to rob the Utgard Express, the worry slowly killing her as it became less and less likely that he was going to come back. Nobody mentioned it, but there was an unspoken agreement between the rest of them that they needed to be there for her as much as they could, no matter how much they were also worrying about Juno.

Eventually things started to fall back into their normal routine, or as close as they could seem to get. Heists continued, though there always seemed to be an empty space, a job perfectly suited to Juno that he would have done in a heartbeat. Peter refused to look at the door of his room when he passed it. If he did, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop himself from going in and thinking about things he didn’t need to be thinking about. Mick Mercury called a dozen more times in the first couple weeks of his absence, and after a while they couldn’t come up with convincing lies anymore and they had to tell him the truth. He was understandably distraught, and he made Rita swear that if they ever found him he’d be the first to know. Nobody had the heart to refuse. 

Things were finally, after a painfully long period of time, starting to seem like they were going to get better, the hurt from Juno’s sudden departure fading little bits at a time, when it all seemed to come down around them again. Rita raced into the room faster than Peter had ever seen her move before, catching herself on the wall so she didn’t fall flat on her face. She had her comms in one hand and a wild, hopeful look in her eyes.

“Rita?” Buddy asked, her voice a mixture of confusion and concern as she looked up from her book at her. “What’s wrong darling?”

“I’m sorry captain, I know you told me to stop looking, and I was going to, I really was, but, well, I think I found Juno.” Rita said, her voice higher than normal as she panted through her words. 

Buddy was out of her seat in seconds. She’d done her best not to show it, but Peter knew she was incredibly worried about Juno, and she wanted him back with them as much as anyone else. “What did you find?”

Rita grabbed Buddy’s arm and pulled her out into the hall, no words leaving her mouth as she did so. Vespa followed after them almost immediately, unwilling to leave her wife for too long. Peter and Jet looked at each other briefly before quickly following the pair of them out of the room, their steps echoing around the otherwise silent ship, mingling with the mechanical humming that was always present in the walls. There was a quiet anxiety making its way up Peter’s throat, the thought of whatever Juno had been through in the past nine months clawing at his lungs and making his breath feel like knives. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, not really, but it was a far cry from what Rita presented them with. 

“I was just doing some scanning, you know, seeing if his name has popped up anywhere, maybe find him on a security camera somewhere.” Rita explained, throwing herself down in the chair she had set up in front of her computer. She’d tucked herself into a back corner of a supply room Peter had never entered before and doubted he would again, a collection of files he couldn’t have described properly spread out around her. It was impressive, in an odd sort of way. 

“And you found him?” Jet asked, leaning down to peer over Rita’s shoulder at her computer screen.

She nodded furiously. “I think so. His name came up on one of my scans. It was used to check into a hotel a couple of nights ago. See, look. Juno Steel, it’s right there.” 

The four of them moved closer as she pointed to a name on a long page of them, and sure enough, there it was. Juno Steel, written in the scratchy cursive Peter recognized as Juno’s handwriting. His heart skipped several beats in his chest at the sight of it.

“And you’re positive it’s him?” Buddy asked. She had her arms crossed across her chest, one finger tapping anxiously where it rested against her other arm. 

“I am. That’s his handwriting, and if anyone would know, it’s me. I’ve been reading it every day for twenty years. I checked the security footage as well, which was really hard to get access to, might I say. These people have really tight security around the place. I had to invent a dozen new viruses to get past their firewall. And, well, after all of that, I managed to get a single frame of what looks like Mista Steel.” 

She typed quickly as she spoke, pulling up an image on her screen. Part of Peter didn’t want to believe what he was seeing, at first, and he dug his nails into his palms as hard as he could to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, because there, on the screen in front of him, was the first glimpse he’d had of Juno Steel in nine agonizingly long months. He felt like he could cry just from the low quality image he was seeing of him. The empty tissue box sitting next to the computer told him that Rita already had. 

“Oh my god.” It came out so unexpectedly that it took Peter a moment to realize the words came from him, the words all carried on the same, hushed breath. 

“I don’t like this,” Vespa said, breaking through the somewhat hopeful air that had started to encompass the room. “I mean, he’s been missing for nine months and what, now he’s just checking into hotels instead of trying to get back into contact with us? There has to be something else going on.”

“I hate to say it but I think Vespa is right.” Buddy said sadly.

The small smile that had started on Rita’s face fell. “But he’s alive.” She said, and Peter felt his heart break, just a little. 

“Tell me everything you know about the hotel he’s checked into. If there’s a way we can get him out we will, darling. I promise.” Buddy assured her, laying a hand gently on Rita’s shoulder, and Peter knew she was being completely honest. It radiated off of her like a light. 

“It’s the Earl Carver Hotel on one of Jupiter’s moons. Super classy place, captain, you wouldn’t believe the types of people that are in and out of there. The Dimagio’s stayed there once. Mista Steel knows the, did you know? Anyway, the current owner is one Arthur Lazarus. He’s the head of some big crime family, all sorts of shady business going on there.” Rita explained. 

“Does Juno know Arthur Lazarus?” Jet asked, and Rita shook her head.

“As far as I know he doesn’t. The boss doesn’t have a lot of friends, you know. There’s a big Lazarus family party going on there tomorrow, and I’ve looked, and Mista Steel is on the guest list. Clearly he’s there for a reason.” She said. 

Buddy noded a couple of times, biting her lip a bit as she thought. “So we need to be there too. You said they’re a crime family?”

Rita nodded. “Basically the space mafia, like the ones they had in all those old earth movies!”

“I might not know Juno that well, but I don’t think he’d willingly go to a crime family party.” Peter said, cutting Rita off from ranting before she could even start. He knew exactly where she was going to go and while he’d usually have the heart to humor her they had very little time and he wasn’t going to waste any of it. 

“I think you’re right, Ransom. We need to get him out of there,” Buddy said, walking over to Rita’s computer and sitting down on the edge of her desk with purpose. “Can you get us on the guest list?”

Rita shook her head. “I don’t think so, captain. This thing is pretty tight, and almost everyone on the list is a Lazarus. There’s too high a chance we’d get caught, unless you think we can convince them they forgot about one of their cousins or something.”

“What about staff?” Peter suggested, and thus started the plan to get Juno out of the Earl Carver Hotel as fast as possible. 

It was simple in theory. Peter and Rita would pose as staff members, a waiter and maid respectively, and scope out the party. Buddy had found it too likely that someone would recognize her, Vespa, or Jet if they were as big of a deal in crime as they seemed to be, so they needed to send in someone that they wouldn’t know. Peter was their only option, but nobody liked the idea of sending him alone, so Rita was tasked with coming along with him. It was risky, they all knew it, but Rita vowed that she’d do her absolute best, and they all knew she’d do just about anything to get Juno back. 

All they had to do was track down Juno and get him alone long enough to figure out what was going on and extract him safely from the hotel. The rest could be dealt with at a later date once they knew he was okay, but he was their top priority right now. It shouldn’t have been hard, but the security on the hotel was harsher than almost any they had encountered before. Finding entrance and exit points was hard enough, let alone figuring out what else lay ahead of them. 

“I feel ridiculous.” Peter mumbled, scanning the halls as best as he could while he walked without appearing suspicious. 

“You look it too,” Vespa said coldly. “Now shut up before you get caught.” 

He took a deep breath, adjusting his jacket one last time, before stepping out into the hotel bar. It was an obnoxiously grand room, and everyone in it was dressed to the nines. The Lazarus family was clearly one of great influence and great wealth, if the expensive looking dresses and suits the hundred or so people spread out across the bar were anything to go by. They weren’t elaborate, not exactly, most of them were rather simple, in fact. It was just the material they were made out of and the glittering jewelry that was paired with them that gave away their true price tag. Peter’s fingers itched with the temptation to swipe a couple of necklaces or rings, the old habit so ingrained in him that it almost felt like second nature. He couldn’t though, he needed to stay on task. Juno was more important than anything else right now.

Peter weaved through the crowd with ease, barely batting an eye when criminals in black tie swiped glasses off his tray. He trailed his eyes around the room as if he were a casual observer, keeping his face schooled into the same expression of casual interest the rest of the waiters wore. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. There were enough people in the room that he was starting to get warm, envying the women in strapless and low-cut dresses as he adjusted his jacket. It was going to be harder than anyone thought for them to find Juno, but he wasn’t going to let himself get discouraged. He couldn’t. 

“Anything yet, darlings?” Buddy’s voice crackled in his ear. 

“Nothing on my end, captain.” Rita responded quietly. 

Peter was about to shoot back his own negative when he shifted his gaze to the back of the room and his breath caught in his throat. There, leaning against a pool table with a group of people Peter had never seen before, was Juno Steel.

“Ransom?” Buddy’s voice was in his ear again, and he cleared his throat quickly before responding. 

“I found him,” He said, keeping his voice as low as possible as he moved toward Juno. Rita sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t know who he’s with, but I’m going to see if I can figure out what they’re saying.”

“Be careful.” Jet warned. Peter didn’t say anything in response.

Seeing Juno in person for the first time in so long was almost enough to bring him to his knees, he though, taking in the lady in front of him with something akin to awe. He looked alright, good, even, and Peter could hardly tear his eyes away from him. He was as beautiful as ever in a deep red suit, a black dress shirt and shoes on to match. It was rather plain in comparison to Juno’s usual taste for events like this, but he was undeniably radiant in it. That just worried Peter more. Why was he okay when he’d been missing for months? Surely he should have been battered and bruised and scared out of his mind, that would only make sense. It felt wrong to see him laughing with a group of strangers at a pool table when they’d spent so long worrying that he was dead. 

He was close enough to hear what they were saying now, and he whispered as much to Buddy, who he could hear turning up the volume of her comms so the three of them could try and listen in as well. Juno tilted his head back as he laughed at something the man next to him said, the long line of his throat drawing Peter’s eye immediately as the sound bounced around his head. It had been far too long since he’d heard him laugh. 

“You have to let me buy you a drink, Juno.” The man next to him laughed, patting him on the back as he walked around the pool table to set up his next shot.

Peter didn’t consider himself a particularly jealous person, but something about hearing this man he didn’t know so blatantly flirt with Juno made his blood boil.

“I don’t drink, Michael,” Juno laughed lightly, turning around to watch Michael make his shot. “You could let me buy you one, though.”

He gestured to the empty glass resting on the edge of the pool table and Peter saw a band on his finger glint in the light. Juno didn’t wear rings, he knew that, so the idea of him wearing one made everything that much more suspicious. 

“You sure you don’t wanna play a round?” A woman across the table from him asked, a dangerous grin pulling at her thin lips. She leaned down as she spoke to him, making the low cut of her dress that much more accentuated. The desperation that rolled off of her almost made Peter feel pity towards her.

Juno took it in stride, laughing a bit and grinning back at her. “I’m afraid my aim isn’t what it used to be.” 

“You can’t be worse than Johnny,” An older man said, knocking his elbow into the back of a younger man's head as he slid up behind Juno. He looked old enough to be Juno’s grandfather, and the entire exchange was incredibly uncomfortable to watch. “Humor us?”

“You tell me how your aim is when one of your eyes falls out of your damn head.” Juno said, his voice completely flat and his eye cold as he looked at the man. 

The other occupants of the table looked between each other briefly before they all started laughing, the sound loud and unnecessary in the somewhat small space of the room. Peter felt himself grow more and more uncomfortable as he watched the exchange, the idea that something was wrong becoming more and more present in his mind. This wasn’t his Juno, not the way he remembered him. Juno didn’t openly talk about his traumas like that, and there was no snark in his voice where there should have been. It felt like he was listening to an entirely different man. 

“I don’t like this.” Buddy said quietly, voicing what they were all clearly thinking. Peter almost said something in agreement before the group was talking again. 

Michael took his shot and missed horribly, causing everyone at the table to laugh, including Juno. Peter noticed how fake it sounded this time and it made his chest hurt with a feeling he didn’t want to spend too long thinking about. 

“Is that offer for a drink still open?” Michael asked, picking up his empty glass and holding it out to Juno. “I think I might need it to cope with my seventh loss of the night.” 

Juno laughed lightly and swiped the glass from Michael’s hand. “You got it. I’ll be right back.” 

“You’re a doll, Juno,” The older man laughed, squeezing Juno’s hip as he walked past him. Juno flinched a little bit, but nobody besides Peter seemed to notice. “Where do I find a lady like you?”

“Why? In the market for new romantic pursuits?” Juno asked, and the table burst into loud laughter again. 

“Go, go, you’re too distracting. I won’t lose because of a pretty face with a few good jokes.” The man laughed harder than he needed to, waving Juno away as he did so.

Juno laughed as well, backing up a few steps before turning around. His smile dropped as soon as he wasn’t facing the table anymore. This was Peter’s chance, the first and probably last opening he was going to get all night, and he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. He watched Juno as he walked away from the table towards him, eye darting around the room a bit as he did so. Peter moved towards him as easily as he could, trying his absolute best not to draw attention to himself. Juno smiled at a couple people as he passed them, but the closer he got the more Peter could tell that it was stiff and forced. 

“This is your chance, Peter.” Buddy said quickly, voicing what he was already thinking. 

A couple more steps, just to get him close enough to Juno that he wouldn’t draw attention to them by speaking to him. Just a couple more steps. He was closer to Juno, to the man he was still in love with after two long years, than he had been in almost a year and his heart felt like it was going to burst in his chest from the sight of him. A couple more steps.

“Juno.” He said, his voice low and somewhat urgent.

Juno turned around to face him, his fake smile already back on his face, and stilled completely when he saw him. The glass he was holding slipped from his hand and shattered on the tile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to point out any spelling or grammar mistakes you find so that I can fix them :)

Juno's eye was wide and full of horror as he stared at Peter, the broken glass at his feet seemingly invisible to him. He was only looking at him, his breathing shaky as he struggled for words to say, his mouth opening and closing a few times. 

"Peter?" He asked, his voice breaking and softer than Peter had ever heard it.

His heart felt like it was going to burst in his chest. "Juno." 

"You're supposed to be dead." Juno breathed, and it was filled with so much anguish that Peter felt like he could break down right there from just the sound of it. 

“What does he mean dead?” Vespa asked. She was clearly trying to pretend she wasn’t worried about Juno, but the concern was clear in her voice if you knew how to listen for it.

He’d almost forgotten they could hear everything he could for a moment, but she brought up an important point. What did Juno mean by supposed to be dead? He hadn’t been in any real danger the last time anyone heard from him, the only one in danger being Juno himself, so it couldn’t be in reference to that. That wouldn’t make sense. He was about to ask Juno what he meant when someone stepped up beside him, clapping their hand down on his shoulder hard enough to make him flinch. Peter had to stop himself from glaring at them, though he doubted they would have noticed either way.

"Juno?" They asked, and Juno schooled his face back into an indifferent expression in seconds. "What happened?" 

Juno looked at the broken glass scattered across the floor like he was seeing it for the first time and laughed. To an outside observer it would sound completely natural, but Peter liked to think he knew Juno quite well, and he picked up easily on how flat it fell. He’d seen the difference between a real smile and the fake one he put on to defend himself enough times to know the difference in an instant. "He just startled me. Don’t worry about it.”

They didn’t look convinced, staring at Peter intently like they were trying to figure out everything about him with one look. “You should have him fired for that.”

“Diane!” Juno huffed, crossing his arms as he stared at them. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s loud in here and I didn’t hear him come up behind me, that’s all. The glass was my fault, too, so if anyone should be in shit for that it’s me.”

Diane looked between Juno and Peter a few times before sighing. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Aurthur fires him for the damage to his uniform.” They said, and Juno turned to look at Peter a tiny bit faster than would have been normal. 

“Shit, I got whiskey on your jacket.” He said, looking Peter in a way that shouldn’t have made his stomach flip but did. He hadn’t even realized there was still whiskey in the cup. 

“That’s alright.” Peter said, a tone of complete indifference taking over when it was the last thing he wanted to pretend to be. 

“No it’s not,” Juno groaned, and Peter could tell it was all for show. “I’ll go with you to get another jacket, explain to them that it was my fault. Maybe they’ll go easy on you. Diane, would you mind getting this cleaned up?”

Diane blinked like they weren’t expecting to be addressed with such a request, but they recovered quickly and grinned at him. “Of course, Juno. Don’t want you to worry yourself over all of that.” 

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” He said, smiling politely at them before turning back to Peter. “Come on, let’s get this sorted.”

Before Peter could even fully process the situation Juno was weaving his way through the crowd, leaving him to catch up. This was the opening he’d been waiting for, the key moment in their plan, and for the first time in a while, he found himself completely at a loss for what to do. Juno had taken every idea he had and completely flipped it on it’s head, leaving him to scramble for purchase to try and come up with a new plan, a new strategy to try. It was so foreign yet felt so explicitly like the way things seemed to always go with Juno that it made his chest light up with a mix of feelings he wasn’t quite prepared to deal with yet. He loved it more than he could say. 

“Juno, we need to talk.” He said, keeping his voice low as he walked alongside the detective.

Juno shot a glare in his direction, his expression cold and calculated. “Shut up. This isn’t real, I know it isn’t. You’re not really him.”

“What is he talking about?” Buddy asked.

“What are you talking about?” Peter said it at the same time Buddy spoke. Juno didn’t answer him, and he watched as he fiddled with the ring on his finger as they walked. A realization reared its head and made him feel slightly ill. He spoke before he properly thought it through. “Is that an engagement ring?”

“I thought I told you to shut up.” Juno snapped at him, and he decided it would be best to leave him to his thoughts for now, though he kept an incredibly close eye on him as they moved through the room. He kept spinning his ring anxiously.

Peter had expected the situation to be complicated, but this was more than even he had been anticipating. Juno thought he wasn’t real, which was concerning in multiple ways, and everyone in the room seemed to know who he was. Those things combined made sneaking him out more complicated than he thought it was going to be. Multiple things about the way Juno was acting were bothering him as well. The ring, for example, because Juno had told him before that the only reason he’d ever wear a ring was if he was married, which he didn’t see happening. They weren’t his style, so the presence of one was vaguely alarming. He’d told Michael that he didn’t drink, as well, which Peter knew to be a complete lie. Juno did drink, heavily, and it wasn’t like him to turn down alcohol of any kind, let alone when it was free. It didn’t feel right.

“Juno!” Someone called out, and for the first time that night Peter saw Juno’s body relax a little bit. 

A woman in a black dress walked quickly over to them, throwing her arms around Juno’s neck as soon as she reached him. He returned the embrace quickly, and she whispered something Peter couldn’t hear into his ear. 

“What’s going on?” Vespa demanded, but he didn’t have a chance to answer before the woman was whirling on him. 

“Who are you?” She asked, her dark eyes sweeping across his body multiple times. She was no longer holding onto Juno, but she stayed close by him. Her entire presence unsettled Peter, from her smile to her body language to the blaster strapped to her thigh that he could see clearly through the slit in her dress. It was obviously there for both function and fashion, and she seemed to be making no effort to hide it. This was the type of woman who would slit his throat with her stiletto heel without a second thought, and he had no idea why Juno was comforted by seeing her.

“You can see him too?” Juno asked, and in any other context it would have sounded absurd. 

“Of course I can,” She said softly, turning to face Juno with a concerned expression on her face, all the previous hardness of it melting away as she gently laid a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong love?”

The pet name made Peter’s blood boil and he refused to think about the reason why. Juno looked comforted by her presence, though he still looked scared as well. He wasn’t used to seeing Juno Steel scared, and he had to admit it wasn’t a good look on him. It made Peter want to bundle him up and protect him from the world, and that was exactly what he couldn’t do right now. The hot spike of jealousy returned to his chest when he looked at the woman's hand on his arm. 

“That’s him.” Juno whispered, and the woman looked between him and Peter a few times before her eyes widened in shocked understanding.

“But that’s impossible,” She said, looking completely baffled as she studied Peter. “You told me Peter Ransom was dead.”

“Because he is.” Juno insisted, and Peter fought down the pathetic urge to insist that no, actually, he was right here, and Juno was the one they’d thought was dead for the better part of a year, thank you very much. 

“Doesn’t look very dead to me.” She said, crossing her arms and staring at him like he was a problem she needed to solve. Being under the force of that gaze was slightly unsettling. 

“Would it be too much for me to ask if I could be informed about my supposed death?” Peter asked, a tiny sliver of hope in his voice. He heard Buddy sigh in annoyance and paid no attention to it. 

“I don’t know who you are, but you owe us one hell of an explanation.” The woman said, her voice cold as she stepped towards him. She was almost the same height as him in her heels, hardly needing to raise her head to look him in the eye. It was slightly uncomfortable, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

“We can’t do this here.” Juno said, looking between the two of them anxiously. 

“You’re right, we can’t,” She agreed, turning her attention away from Peter to look at Juno for a moment. “I’ve got an idea, and I know you’re not gonna like it.”

Juno sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just do it.”

She nodded and turned back to Peter, taking a couple of steps closer to him until he could feel her breath on his face. “You’re lucky you’re handsome.” She said, and before Peter could fully process it she was kissing him.

He wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to react. It wasn’t that she was a bad kisser, no, she was quite the opposite really. He just wasn’t very interested in women, and especially not ones who seemed likely to kill him for doing something even slightly wrong, though his reputation and a certain detective might say otherwise. 

“Might I ask what the point of that was?” Peter asked when she pulled away from him.

She took a couple of steps back and grabbed Juno’s hand with a practiced ease, continuing to move in the direction of the door and dragging him behind her. “Anyone who sees us leave will think we’re sleeping together now. It’s less suspicious.” 

“I see,” Peter said, nodding a bit to himself as he considered it. It was a rather smart strategy, he’d give her that, even if it made his stomach turn in a hundred different uncomfortable ways. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“I suppose it does,” She mocked, continuing to pull Juno towards the door. “Now hurry up.”

She turned around then, leaving him to once again catch up as she and Juno made their way over to the door, their hands still linked between them. Peter didn’t consider himself a jealous man, not really, but the sight of the two of them so close together was really starting to make him question that. They walked in silence from the door to an elevator he didn’t remember seeing when he studied the plans of the hotel the previous day. Juno pressed the button to call the elevator down, and before he knew it Peter was being roughly shoved into it. There was a blaster in his face when he turned around to face the other two, more specifically the one that had previously been strapped to the woman's thigh. She was aiming it straight between his eyes now, and Juno looked rather indifferent about the whole thing.

“Hand over your comms.” She said. 

Peter stilled a little bit, but it was small enough that she shouldn’t have been able to notice it. He hoped she hadn’t. “Excuse me?”

“That’s not what the staff comms look like. It’s close, I’ll give you that, but it’s not exact. I know you don’t work here, so hand the comms over.” Her voice was completely calm as she spoke. 

“I think you’re mistaken-” Peter started, but she cut him off. 

“I’m not,” She said, and she sounded so sure of herself that he wanted to believe her just for it. “I know the security of this building like the back of my hand, and that means I know all of the employees. You aren’t one of them. So I’m going to tell you again, hand over your comms.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed in there, Peter.” Buddy told him, and he couldn’t help but agree that that was the most likely course of action. He still didn’t move to take out his comms. 

“Oh, I get it. Your own life isn’t motivation enough for you, is it? Well that’s an easy fix.” She grinned at him, and before Peter could blink the blaster was aimed at Juno’s head instead of his.

She didn’t take her eyes off of him as she moved, but the shot was lined up perfectly with Juno’s temple, and Peter was positive she could see the way his eyes widened and his entire body tensed. Juno didn’t look especially bothered by the blaster pointed at his head, and there were a dozen reasons that worried Peter that he didn’t have time to think through. His hand twitched at his side and the woman grinned. He still didn’t know her damn name.

“There we go. Now, I’m going to say it one more time. Hand over your comms, or I shoot him.” Her finger twitched on the trigger, the grin tugging at her lips growing ever so slightly when she noticed what was undoubtedly panic on Peter’s face. 

“If you shoot him someone will know.” He said, but his voice didn’t sound very convincing even to his own ears. 

She laughed a little and shook her head. “This elevator has no security cameras. I should know, I installed them all. Now come on pretty boy. I wanna know who you’re talking to.”

And Peter didn’t really have much of a choice, did he? Not with the blaster pointed directly at Juno or the ever increasing number of floors they were going up. There was no way around it. The elevator stopped, the blaster was still pointed at Juno, and before the doors could open Peter ripped the comms out of his ear and handed them over. She grinned and lowered the blaster, slipping the comms into her own ear instead. Juno still looked like he didn’t care, and it was incredibly upsetting to see. 

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Make yourself comfortable, I’m sure the rest of your friends will be joining us soon.” And with that the elevator doors opened and she stepped out, rounding a corner and talking into Peter’s comms before he could even blink. 

Juno followed her out, walking through the vast room they’d arrived at. Peter took a moment to take it all in. It was rather grand, he would admit, and absolutely no part of it seemed like something Juno would pick for himself. He watched as Juno collapsed down into a chair in the living room portion of the suite, tugging off his blazer and tossing it haphazardly onto the couch opposite him. It was the first time Peter had really had the chance to study him since he’d found him, and his heart ached at how tired he looked. There were bags under his eyes and his movements were slow and choppy, his eyelids drooping slightly as he settled back in the chair. He continued to spin the ring on his finger as he closed his eye, face tilted towards the ceiling in thought.

"Juno?" He asked, taking a few steps closer to him. Juno's eye shot open, and he stared at Nureyev like he was scared of him. He didn't ever want Juno to be afraid of him. "Are you alright?" 

"Why do you care?" He scoffed, drawing in on himself a bit more in the chair. 

"She put a blaster to your head." Peter said, morning slowly closer to Juno.

"If I had a cred for every time someone's put a blaster to my head since I got here I'd be richer than Julian DiMaggio." Juno laughed, but it sounded forced and bitter. 

"She would have shot you." He said. 

"No," Juno said, sounding more sure of himself than he had since Peter had found him. "She wouldn't have. I trust her." 

The unspoken and not you hung in the air between them for a long moment as Peter finished crossing the room. He made it to the chair, looking down at Juno, who was refusing to meet his eye, and he felt his heart shatter in his chest all over again. It seemed to be a common feeling when it came to Juno Steel, though there was a plethora of reasons behind it, and it felt both comforting and painful in its easy familiarity. 

Peter knelt down next to the chair, looking up at Juno as he stared down at him. "Juno, what happened?" 

“Stop it.” Juno said, shaking his head violently. He looked to be on the verge of tears. 

“You’ve been missing for nine months, Juno. I’ve been worried. We all have.” Peter said gently, placing his hand on his knee as softly as possible.

That only served to freak Juno out more. He jerked away from him like his touch hard burned him, standing up from the chair and backing away in a few quick steps. “You’re not him, okay? I know you’re not, so drop the damn act already, okay?”

“Juno, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter said, keeping his voice soft and his movements slow as he stood up to face Juno. “It’s me. It’s Peter.”

“Peter Ransom is dead!” Juno snapped, his chest heaving as he stared at Peter, his eye wide and full of terror. He looked like he was reliving something he’d wanted to suppress, and it made Peter’s heart ache.

“Juno-” 

Juno shook his head, backing up to put even more space between the two of them. “No! He’s dead, okay? I watched him die, so I don’t know who you are or what you want from me but I’m not gonna believe you! I know you’re not him!” 

Peter didn’t have a chance to answer before the woman was back in the room. She tossed his comms back at him and he fumbled with them a bit, just barely managing to catch them before they hit the ground. She wasn’t paying any attention to him, instead making her way across the room to Juno. He looked scared and upset and Peter didn’t feel like he was going to be getting over the feelings of heartbreak that was settled into his chest any time soon. 

“Am I interrupting something?” She asked, looking between Juno and Peter a couple of times. 

Juno shook his head. “No. It’s nothing.”

She didn’t look like she believed him, but she dropped the subject anyway, turning her attention to Peter instead. “Your friends weren’t too happy with me.”

“I wonder why.” Peter mused, his tone dripping with sarcasm. 

“Doesn’t matter,” She shrugged, pulling a couple of pins out of her hair and letting it spill down her back. The fact that she got that much hair to stay up with just a few pins was a talent of its own. “They're all gonna be here soon, anyway. The other one in the building is on her way up now. Rita, was it?”

“You brought Rita?” Juno shouted, even more fear filling his eye. 

She took a couple more steps towards Juno and placed her hand gently on his cheek. He closed his eye and took in a few deep breaths. Peter felt like he was intruding on a private moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. “It isn’t actually Rita, love.”

“Yeah,” Juno nodded a couple of times, his hands flexing at his sides. “Yeah I know. It just feels so real.”

Her eyes swam with sympathy as she looked at him, a completely different person than the one who held a blaster to him in the elevator taking over her. It was fascinating and incredibly confusing to watch. Peter had never been the best at putting things together, and for a while he hadn’t even needed to try. Juno always covered that part of heists. He bet if he was standing in Peter’s place instead he’d already know exactly what was going on and ten different ways to fix it, though that could have just been his good opinion of the detective talking. Either way, he would know more than Peter knew. He’d know what questions to ask and what information was important and where to look for clues. Everything would be falling into place for Juno, but for Peter it all felt like too much. 

There was a short, soft knock at the door and Juno practically jumped out of his skin at the sound of it. They all looked towards it, the same questions undoubtedly flooding into their minds. 

“Miss Lazarus? It’s Rita.” Rita’s voice came through the door. Juno’s entire body stiffened and the woman, apparently a Lazarus, patted him gently on the cheek before stepping away to go and get the door. 

“You’re a Lazarus?” Peter asked, but she ignored him, her heels clicking on the marble floors as she moved over to the door. 

Rita’s eyes were wide as she looked into the room once the door was open, scanning across every surface and face until landing on Juno. She looked as though she might be about to cry from the sight of him, though Pete wouldn’t put it past her to actually do that. She’d missed Juno more than anyone, and here he was, standing right in front of her safe and sound for the first time in nine months. Her chest heaved and her eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill over. 

“Mista Steel?” She gasped, taking a few steps into the room, letting the door swing closed behind her. 

Juno looked like he’d been shot, all the colour gone from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost. He was breathing rapidly, his chest rising and falling much faster than was healthy. Every inch of his body was tense, but despite that he was still moving, taking steps back until he was against the wall, his hands shaking at his sides the entire time. He closed his eye tightly, mumbling something under his breath that Peter thought sounded a lot like it’s not her. 

“Alright,” The woman said, clapping her hands together and moving about the room like she was oblivious to Juno’s obvious panicking. “I think we have some things to talk about.”

“I think we do.” Peter agreed, and she shot him a deadly grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confused yet? Good. This is such a fun fic to write I'm loving it so I hope you're all enjoying it as well. What do you think is going on with Juno? Who do you think the woman he's with is? Leave me all of your theories I'd love to read them and know what you think is happening. 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find :)

“I suggest you two start talking.” 

The room was tense and uncomfortable, the four of them sitting in absolute silence for what felt like hours on end. Peter and Rita had taken up a couple of chairs on one side of the room, directly across from Juno and the woman who’s name Peter still didn’t know. She was perched on the arm of the chair Juno occupied, her hand on his shoulder seeming to be the only thing preventing him from getting up and running out of the room. He looked nothing short of terrified, and it was incredibly upsetting to see. 

“We’re here because we were worried about Juno.” Peter said gently. 

The woman snorted. “Yeah right. Clearly you’ve got some sort of scheme going on if you’re impersonating his dead friends, so let’s try being honest, yeah?”

“We’re not dead,” Rita said quickly, though she looked like she regretted it when the woman turned to look at her. She didn’t back down though. “Clearly we’re sitting here, so I don’t know how you could still be arguing that we’re dead, especially considering Mista Steel is the one who went missing and we all thought he was dead for a long time. We just want our friend back, lady.”

Juno’s entire body seemed to flinch, his eye darting downward and his hands curling into fists in his lap. Peter longed to reach over and comfort him, the expression so like the one he’d worn so many nights during the whole ordeal with Miasma that it brought back countless memories he’d been trying to repress. The woman tightened her hand on his shoulder, leaning down to press her forehead to his temple and whisper something they couldn’t hear. Juno nodded wordlessly, but the tension seeped from his body just a little. Peter didn’t trust her, not in the slightest, but a small part of him was clad that she could so clearly calm Juno down when he was so obviously distressed. From the look on her face he could tell Rita felt the same. 

“I don’t know how comfortable I am being interrogated by someone I know absolutely nothing about.” Peter said firmly, and she looked up at him sharply. 

“You seem to know quite a bit about Juno, isn’t that enough for you?” She asked. 

Peter shook his head. “No.”

She laughed a bit, and it didn’t sound mean, not really, and it confused him more than he was willing to admit. She didn’t sound like she had before and he had no idea what it meant. “Alright, I’ll bite. My name is Kai, Kai Lazarus. My uncle Arthur owns this hotel, which is why I know so much about security.”

“Not Lazarus.” Juno said quietly. Peter looked over at him, his eyebrow quirking a bit in confusion, and Kai’s face lit up.

“Right, sorry. Kai Steel, I should say. I’m still not used to introducing myself as that.” She smiled.

Peter felt his blood run cold, and Rita sat up straighter in the chair next to him. Kai eyed her warily as she did so. That explained the ring, Peter thought, and he had to bite back the jealousy that rose in him so that he could think rationally. “Congratulations.” 

Kai laughed. “Do you know enough now, or do I have to start relaying childhood traumas for you? I have a whole scrapbook full if you’re interested.”

“Maybe another time.” Peter grumbled. 

The light, joking tone she’d taken on seemed to relax Juno quite a bit. Juno Steel married was a picture he didn’t think he’d ever had, especially not to someone like Kai, but he had to admit that they looked good together, as much as it hurt to see them together. 

“That doesn’t make sense.” Rita said suddenly.

Kai raised an eyebrow at her, leaning forward a bit as she spoke. “What doesn’t?”

“You and Mista Steel,” She said. There was a fiery determination in her eyes that Peter recognized and loved. “He’s never wanted to get married, not after Diamond, and besides, you’re not his type.”

The name Diamond struck curiosity into Peter, but it seemed to bring about a deep discomfort in Juno, so he didn’t ask about it. He didn’t want to add to that discomfort in any way, especially not now. 

“Since when have I had a type?” Juno crossed his arms over his chest, though it was clear to Peter that he was trying to hide how uncomfortable the anecdote really made him. 

“Since agent Strong,” Rita said, bringing up yet another name Peter didn’t know but was clearly recognized by both Juno and Kai, though less by her. “Also agent Glass, but he’s sitting right here, and you weren’t all that interested in him before agent Strong, so I’m not counting it. You type is people who you’re good at making mad, basically.”

“If that was my type I’d be in love with Vespa.” Juno said, a hint of humor in his tone, but it dropped completely when he realized what he said, his eye widening. 

“You’d be surprised to know how worried Vespa has been about you.” Peter said. 

Juno looked up at him quickly. He looked furious, and it almost made him want to take it back. “Shut up, don’t bring them into this.”

“Miss Buddy and Mista Jet were really worried too.” Rita added. 

“I said shut up!” Juno snapped, standing up from his chair sharply. Kai looked concerned as she watched him, but she didn’t step in and stop him. “Are you really gonna pile in every person I know just to make me feel bad? Is that your goal? Because you’re not them!”

“Juno-” Peter was cut off. 

“I’m not that stupid, I’m not gonna just believe that five of the only people I’ve ever cared about are back from the dead! What, next are you gonna tell me Annie Wire is still alive too? What about Ben?” Juno’s chest was heaving with every word he said. Peter didn’t recognize either of the names, but he could tell they held a rather large weight over the detective. 

“Maybe you should sit down and let them talk, love.” Kai said gently, standing up and placing a hand softly on his shoulder. Juno flinched away from her.

“No! No, I’m not doing this, I’m not! This is cruel and you know it is.” His words were full of venom as he spat them out at them, and before Peter could fully process whatever was happening he was turning and walking away. 

This was their chance and they were blowing it. Whatever was going on had clearly damaged Juno quite a bit, and there was no way he was going to go with them, not now. Peter wasn’t going to take Juno by force, he’d never be able to bring himself to, but there was only so much they could say and Juno was brushing it all off and Peter had absolutely no idea why. 

“You’re fired!” Rita shouted after him, and Juno completely froze. “You’re fired, Mista Steel.”

“What are you doing?” Peter whispered harshly at her. She shot him a glare and he backed off.

“Remember how I convinced you to change your locks to digital so I could lock you in your apartment when you were sick?” Rita said gently, standing up and making her way ever so slowly over to where Juno was standing, his back turned to them and his shoulders shaking. “I almost blew up the office when I did that.”

Juno made a noise that sounded halfway between a laugh and a sob. Kai watched the two of them curiously, a slight defensive air to her, but she wasn’t getting between the two of them. She seemed to be willing to let this play out, and that filled Peter with both nervousness and relief. He stood up carefully, prepared to jump in and help Rita if he needed to, but she didn’t seem to need it. 

“You really scared me, Mista Steel, even more than that bomb did. You’ve been gone for a real long time, and I was starting to think we weren’t gonna find you at all, but here you are! This is just like that one stream we watched that one time, oh, you remember! Where that dancer was kidnapped by space pirates and then her wife who also happened to be a space pirate thought she died but found her again years later! Except, well, I’m not your wife, and no offense boss but I think I’d rather die.” Rita was rambling as she approached Juno, and he didn’t move away from her, instead just standing and letting her get to him. His back was still turned to her, and his shoulders were shaking even more, but his hands weren’t balled into fists at his sides anymore. 

“That stream sucked.” Juno said, his voice so quiet Peter almost didn’t hear it. 

“Don’t pretend you weren’t tearing up at the end, Mista Steel.” Rita put her hand on his shoulder and Juno spun around, tears running down his face as he looked at her. 

“Tell me something,” Juno gasped, his body trembling as he sobbed. “Something only Rita would know. Please.”

“You almost brought home a sewer rabbit. You named her Small Fry.” She said.

Between one blink and the next Juno had Rita wrapped in his arms, both of their bodies shaking as he sobbed into her shoulder. She was much smaller than him, that wasn’t a secret, but at that moment he looked so tiny that even Rita could have towered over him. Peter chanced a glance over at Kai and watched her wipe a single tear from her cheek, a grin spreading across her face. It was the first one since they’d met her that didn’t look mean. Instead it just looked happy.

“You’re real, you’re really here.” Juno sobbed. 

Peter looked back at them and watched as the two of them sunk to the ground, held securely in each others arms for the first time in what felt like forever. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched them. 

“You’re okay now Mista Steel,” Rita soothed him, rocking him back and forth slightly. Juno just sobbed harder. “Everything is okay now.”

“Does that mean you’re really Peter Ransom, then?” Kai asked, and Juno’s head shot up, his eye wide and tear filled as he focused in on Peter. 

“Please tell me you’re real.” He begged, forcing himself up on shaky legs and moving over to Peter, standing just in front of him with so much hope in his eye that Peter thought it might kill him if he was wrong. 

“I’m real.” He said softly, but Juno shook his head.

“Tell me something only he would know.” He said, and Peter immediately knew what he meant. 

There was only one place his thoughts went, and there was no doubt in his mind that it’s what Juno expected too, what he needed, and who was Peter to deny this lady anything? He took a couple steps closer, leaning down to place his mouth right next to his ear. Juno shivered a little bit and Peter tried not to focus on it. 

“My name is Peter Nureyev.” He whispered.

Juno pulled away from him as fast as he could, a grin taking over his face and a new wave of sobs washing over his body as he jumped up and wrapped his arms around Peter’s shoulders. He caught Juno around the waist, bending his knees a bit to make it easier on the lady as he stood on his toes and pulled Peter to him as hard as he could. He held onto him as if he was afraid he would disappear if he dared to start to let go. 

“I thought you were dead,” Juno sobbed, burying his face in Peter’s chest. He let him, holding on with all he had and trying not to let his own emotions overwhelm him. “I thought you were all dead.”

“We’re here now, Juno. We’re safe.” Peter soothed, running his fingers gently through his hair and letting Juno smear streaks of mascara all over his jacket. It didn’t matter to him. Nothing mattered to him right now besides the lady in his arms and the feeling of the cracks in his heart finally starting to stitch back together after accepting that they might be a permanent resident there. 

“Does that mean everyone else is okay too?” Juno asked suddenly, pulling away from Peter and holding onto his biceps so hard his knuckles turned white and Peter was sure he’d have bruises the next day. “Buddy and Vespa and Jet? Are they still alive?”

“Everyone is okay.” Peter assured him, reaching up and brushing a stray curl off of Juno’s forehead. He let out a sob mixed with a laugh, his grin returning as he folded forward and rested his face against Peter’s chest. Peter wrapped his arms around Juno’s shoulders, not quite ready to let go of him yet. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready to let go of him, not again. 

“I don’t mean to break up your moment, cause this really is rather adorable, you know, but I’m still pretty confused. Why did Mista Steel think we were all dead?” Rita spoke up. For a moment  
Peter had almost forgotten there were other people in the room. 

Juno untangled himself from Peter, who tried his best not to mourn the loss of the feeling of him against him, and turned to Rita, wiping tears out of his eye and off his cheeks. “I saw it happen.”

“It was Arthur.” Kai said suddenly, and the three of them all turned to look at her.

“Arthur?” Peter asked, raising an eyebrow a bit in confusion. “Your uncle?”

“Juno, he’s the one who made you think they were dead. It makes perfect sense.” She said, her eyes widening with a mix of horror and astonishment. 

Juno stilled for a moment before letting out a loud laugh, his hand going up to his face to lay over his eyepatch. “Everything leads back to good old uncle Arthur, doesn’t it?”

Peter had absolutely no idea what the two of them were talking about. Realistically he knew Juno was stringing together information, putting the clues in the right places and organizing it all to come up with a clear story in his head, but that had always been a confusing process to follow. He looked over at Rita, who was clearly trying to put all the pieces together in her own head. She’d been working with Juno for long enough that she knew his process and how his brain worked, at least a little bit anyway, but they had very limited information on the Lazarus family. There wasn’t much they could use to try and figure out whatever was going on with the two of them. 

“How did he make you think you saw something that never happened?” Rita asked. 

“Probably a combination of blood loss and insistence.” Juno said simply, and it sparked a cold rush of terror in Peter’s chest.

“Blood loss?” He asked, but Juno didn’t seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to him. He started to pace, the gears in his head turning as he replayed everything he knew again and again until he found the link. 

“He told me hundreds of times that you were all dead, that I’d been there, I saw it happen, and I guess after a while I just believed him. Made up an image of what it would have looked like and convinced myself it was a memory. I was too fucked up to challenge him, so I must have just gone with it.” Juno was speaking more to himself than anyone else, but they were all taking the information in. 

“Clever bastard. He knew you wouldn’t be able to think clearly in your state, he planned this.” Kai remarked, laughing bitterly at the end. 

“Now we know where you got it from.” Juno told her, shooting her a quick smirk. She rolled her eyes in response and Peter had to dig his nails into the palm of his hand to keep himself composed. 

“Shut up. The question is, why?” Kai continued, plopping down on the arm of the couch and tapping her heel continuously on the floor as the thought. 

“He didn’t want me to hope they were coming for me. It makes sense, Kai. If I had no hope left I’d be more willing to do what he wanted.” Juno said, stopping in his tracks and looking over at her, his eye slightly wider than it had been before. 

“Is there a chance you’d be willing to fill the two of us in on any of this?” Peter asked. 

Juno jumped a little, looking over at him like he’d forgotten he was there. For a second he looked as though he’d seen a ghost, his mere presence seeming to startle him before his brain caught up and he remembered what was going on. Seeing him like this hurt more than Peter ever thought he’d be able to properly express. There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to erase the haunted look in Juno’s eye that seemed to present now where it hadn’t been before. 

“Right,” He said softly, his eye flitting between Peter and Rita a couple of times. “Sorry. So-” 

He was cut off by a knock from the other side of the suite. The four of them all stilled, all turning to look at the source of the sound. Kai and Juno looked at each other for a moment before they both nodded and crept slowly over to the doorway into the rest of the suite. Juno slipped a blaster out of a holster on his hip that had been perfectly hidden by his jacket and tossed it over to Kai, who caught it without having to look at him. The way the two of them moved together made it clear that it was something they did often, the complete lack of hesitation Juno showed when handing over his weapon a sign of clear trust. Peter remembered a time when he and Juno had been the same way, but he pushed the memory away. Now wasn’t the time to reminisce. 

Rita caught his eye, looking at him with a frightened expression, and he took a moment to move a couple steps closer to her as Juno and Kai approached the knocking. Kai rounded the corner before Juno did and raised the blaster almost immediately, but Juno knocked it down the second he stepped up beside her. 

“It’s Buddy,” He said quickly, easing her arm downward. “I think.”

The last part was added softly at the end like the fact that he wasn’t completely sure was something he was ashamed to admit. Kai huffed and shoved the blaster into the pocket of Juno’s dress pants, the defensive stance she’d taken easing off, though it wasn’t gone entirely. Peter and Rita moved over to them quickly and he felt a small pulse of ease in his chest at the familiar sight of Buddy smiling kindly at him. She was out on the balcony on the other side of the room, and he wondered briefly how she’d managed to get there before deciding that that train of thought was probably pointless. 

Kai walked over and unlocked the door, letting Buddy slide into the room easily. Vespa and Jet followed after her, and Peter could see Juno get more and more tense with each new person who stepped into the room. He was seconds away from moving over to him when Rita beat him to it, grabbing his hand gently as though she’d done it a hundred times before. She probably had if the way he instantly tangled his fingers with hers was anything to go by. Peter felt better seeing him like that with Rita than he had with Kai, but he wasn’t going to think about it too long. That was a can of worms he didn’t need to deal with. 

“Juno,” Buddy gasped as she looked at him. “It’s so good to see you, darling.”

Juno didn’t say anything in response, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he looked between the three of them. He squeezed Rita’s hand tighter in his and she immediately seemed to know what to do. Peter had always been a little jealous of how easily she could read him. 

“It’s really them, Mista Steel, it’s okay.” Rita said gently. 

He shut his eye tightly and took a deep breath before opening it again and looking between the three of them. “Tell me something only you would know.” 

The three of them looked rather confused, and Peter couldn’t blame them, but he could see where Juno was coming from as well. This was clearly a hard situation for him, and even if Peter didn’t know all the details he felt like he would probably react the same if five people he’d thought he watched die were all suddenly in front of him again. 

Vespa seemed to clue into what Juno meant first. “The control room.” She said simply. It was vague and clearly held no significance to anyone else in the room, but it eased some of the tension from Juno’s shoulders. 

“You think I didn’t notice that you stole one of my lipsticks, but I did, I just decided not to bring it up because it looks good on you.” Buddy followed Vespa’s lead, reaching out to grab her wife’s hand as she did so. Juno huffed out a laugh, and it was more genuine than any other Peter had heard from him so far. 

“You once had a drunken argument with me about why they would call a green car the Ruby 7.” Jet spoke up last, and it drained the last bit of visible tension from Juno’s body. 

“Why would they call a green car Ruby?” Kai asked, wrinkling her nose in disapproval. 

“That’s what I’m wondering!” Juno said, his voice louder than it had been before. It almost made Peter jump. 

“Wait, wait, I have a question,” Kai said quickly, whirling to face Buddy and Vespa with a determined glint in her eyes. “How long exactly has Juno been gone?”

“Nine months.” Jet answered easily, and Peter watched as the smile fell off of her face for a second before she groaned. 

“Damnit.” She huffed, and Juno whooped in triumph. 

“You owe me one hundred creds.” He grinned at her, unlinking his hand from Rita’s for a celebratory fist pump. The change between the scared, unsure lady that had been standing before him seconds ago to the Juno Steel that Peter knew and loved was jarring but he loved it more than he could properly express. 

“Juno, darling, would you mind introducing us to your friend?” Buddy asked kindly, a fond smile taking over her face. 

Juno flushed a little bit and scratched at the back of his neck. “Right. This is Kai.”

He gestured vaguely at Kai, who took the lead and walked over to Buddy, extending her hand for a handshake. “Kai Lazarus, lovely to meet you. I’ve heard so many things about you.”

“Juno talks about us?” Buddy asked, taking her hand. Vespa shot Kai a glare that she didn’t even seem to notice. 

“Of course he does, but I knew about you long before I met him,” She said, moving on to shake hands with Vespa and Jet, who both seemed rather concerned with the sudden enthusiasm in her voice. “Vespa and Buddy, please, everyone has heard of you! And Jet! I never thought I’d actually have the pleasure of meeting the unnatural disaster!”

“It’s always lovely to meet a fan.” Buddy laughed a bit, and Kai shot her a grin before whirling on Peter. 

“Give me another one of your aliases, I want to know if you’re connected to any crimes I know.” She demanded, taking a few quick steps over to him until they were face to face. She looked like an entirely different person from the one that held a blaster to his head in the elevator. 

He contemplated for a moment, thinking over which alias he could reveal as him without tying him to anything truly awful. “Perseus Shaw.”

Kai’s eyes lit up. “Yes! God, that’s one of my favourite cases! Impersonated a private investigator and stole a woman's entire collection right out from under her, genius!”

“You sure do know a lot about this stuff, don’t you Mrs Steel?” Rita asked. “You really know how to pick them, boss.”

“Mrs Steel?” Jet asked, clear confusion in his voice. Juno and Kai turned to look at each other for a moment before she laughed. 

“Oh god no, we’re not actually married!” She laughed. 

“Is the idea of being married to me really that funny?” Juno asked, crossing his arms over his chest. It did nothing to hide the smile on his face. “Because if I remember correctly you were the one who proposed.”

“Of course I didn’t mean it like that, love.” She laughed a little again, patting Juno on the cheek and smiling at him. 

“What the hell are you two talking about?” Vespa demanded, and the easy atmosphere that had started to fill the room broke. 

Kai sighed and moved her hand from Juno’s cheek, turning to address the rest of the room. “I suppose we have a lot to tell you all, don’t we?”

“I think that sounds right.” Buddy nodded. Kai looked over at Juno, who had his eye closed and his hands balled into fists at his sides. He took a few deep breaths, his head tilted towards the floor as he settled his nerves. 

“Okay,” He said, opening his eye and nodding at them. “Where should I start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are things starting to come together or are they just getting more and more complicated? Who knows, certainly not you guys! How are we feeling about all of this? What do you think happened to Juno? Do you trust Kai? Let me know all of your thoughts and theories I love reading them. 
> 
> Next weeks update is gonna be a special one so check back in next Wednesday for that because if you care about figuring this shit out you're gonna wanna read it ;)
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live please leave me some


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them

Juno dodged through blaster fire as quickly as he could, ducking around corners and forcing himself not to wince every time a shot flew past his head, just barely missing him every time. There was far too much going on and far too little time to think about it, the only thing keeping him moving the adrenaline searing through his veins. His legs ached and his chest heaved and there was absolutely nothing he could do besides continue to run through the maze of a vault he found himself in. A well aimed shot struck the ground right in front of him and he didn’t have time to dodge the cracks it formed in the floor, his foot catching on the edge of one and sending him face first into the ground. Another well timed shot hit him directly in the shoulder and he shouted, his face screwing up in pain. Vespa was hauling him off the ground before he could even fully process it, the pain making his brain fuzzy. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever felt, not by a long shot, but it still hurt like a bitch and he had to take a couple seconds to catch his breath before the pain started to subside a bit. The sound of blasters shooting at them was still echoing around the hall. 

“Shit Steel,” Vespa hissed, shoving at his arm so she could examine his shoulder better. “This doesn’t look good.”

“We can worry about that when we get back to the ship. Go, I’ll catch up.” He winced when he moved, his shoulder jostling in a way that was far from comfortable. 

Vespa growled at him angrily. His blood was staining her hands and he couldn’t help but be glad that he couldn’t see how bad his wound actually was. “If you think I’m leaving you here-”

“I’m right behind you, now go!” Juno snapped at her. Vespa looked like she was going to argue with him more but another shot was fired down the hall and she seemed to think better of it, shooting another quick glance in Juno’s direction before she took off down the hall. 

“Jet! Jet we need you, and fast!” Vespa shouted, her voice both a few paces ahead of him and in his ear through his comms. He could hardly hear her over the pounding of his heart in his head as he started to run again.

“What happened?” Nureyev asked, and the question was so absurd that Juno almost laughed. 

“We don’t really have time to explain right now, Ransom!” He growled out, turning another sharp corner and wincing when his hip connected with a doorknob. He kept running. “Just get here!”

He could hear a jumble of indistinct shouting over his comms and tried not to pay attention to it or the burning of his lungs as he continued to run. The footsteps of the guards chasing after them seemed to echo with their shots now, growing closer and closer to him and Vespa in a way that was incredibly worrying. Vespa was decently far ahead of him, but she wasn’t far enough away to be out of range of the blaster shots, not fully, and the moment they managed to take Juno down, which didn’t seem too unlikely, they’d be after her. It wasn’t her they were paying attention to just yet, though, and even if he’d been trying to get better there was no denying that Juno Steel was the self sacrificing type. So he watched as Vespa moved expertly through the halls, and the next time she rounded a corner he made a split second decision. 

Vespa turned left, the way they were supposed to be going. He knew there was another sharp right turn almost immediately down that hall that they needed to take, one that would get her out of view of the guards almost immediately. Juno didn’t take the left turn when he reached it. Instead he went right, charging head first into a hallway that lead to god knows where. His heart felt like it stopped for a second as he moved, but he felt a shot clip the edge of his ear and knew he’d made the right choice. The guards were following him, not Vespa. She was safe along with the book they’d broken in to steal and that’s all that mattered. 

“What the hell are you doing Steel?!” Vespa’s voice came through his comms. He assumed she’d probably noticed that the guards weren’t following her anymore and turned to check.

He could hardly answer her around the aching in his chest. “Saving your ass, what does it look like?” 

“It looks like suicide.” She growled. 

“Well, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve tried that,” He panted, taking turn after turn and hoping he would find a way out. “Turns out I’m pretty hard to kill.”

“Juno, Vespa, what’s going on?” Buddy spoke up, her tone one of expertly concealed panic. 

“Steel went the wrong way, he’s gonna get himself killed!” Vespa snarled.

“Vespa has the book, and I’m injured. She’s the one who needs to make it out, so I got the guards off her tail.” Juno panted.

“We need you to get out too, darling.” Buddy said softly.

Juno rounded another corner and slammed straight into a wall. He turned, hands running over every stone in the small alcove he found himself in with increasing panic, hoping for something, anything that might indicate a way out. There was absolutely nothing. “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.”

“What’s happening?” It was Nureyev this time, and the entire situation felt slightly too familiar to one from before to be comfortable. 

They were going to kill him, he was positive about that. He’d broken into one of the most high security vaults in the galaxy and now they’d caught him and there was no way they were going to let him live long enough to explain himself. There was no walking out of it this time, no miraculous escape that should have been impossible but happens anyway. Of all the ways to go this certainly wasn’t the one he’d been expecting, but it was fitting nonetheless. Throwing his life away for Vespa Ai, now that was an unexpected turn of events. Even when he wasn’t suicidal anymore he still managed to sacrifice himself. 

“Rita,” Juno said, leaning his forehead against the stone and forcing himself to be calm. “You there?”

“What’s going on, Mista Steel?” Rita asked. It was clear in her voice that she was crying. Part of Juno hated himself for making it even worse, but he needed to say something. He wasn’t going to leave her like that, not again. 

“I never thank you, you know, and I really should. You’ve done so much for me and I don’t deserve it. Hell, you followed me out into space just because I told you I needed you. I really do love you, I hope you know that.”

“Don’t you dare say goodbye, boss. Mista Jet is on his way, he’s gonna get you out.” She sounded terrified and it broke his heart. 

“I hit a dead end, Rita,” He said, taking in a deep breath as he listened to the footsteps and blaster fire get closer and closer. “There’s no getting me out of this.”

“Don’t talk like that, Juno.” Nureyev scolded him, and he couldn’t help but let out a light laugh. 

“This feel familiar?” He asked, and he heard Nureyev suck in a sharp breath. “At least I’m the only one down here this time. I never did say I was sorry for that, so, sorry, though I guess it doesn’t really mean much now.”

Buddy was shouting over the comms some more, no doubt communicating with Jet, but he couldn’t find it in himself to pay attention. Instead he took a deep breath in, letting the feeling of stone against his forehead and his palms ground him before turning around, his eye set on the wall across from him with a steely determination that only felt partially real. 

“See you all in hell.” He said, trying his absolute best to make himself sound like he wasn’t scared out of his mind. He reached up and removed his comms as the rest of them started to shout indistinctly at him. It fell from his hand onto the stone floor and he allowed himself one more moment of listening to their voices, shutting his eye tightly and taking a deep breath in before crushing the device under his boot. 

The hall seemed much quieter without the sound of their shouting, but the tiny bit of silence didn’t last before he heard pounding footsteps come around the corner. Juno opened his eye and watched as what looked like at least twenty guards stopped in front of him, all of their blasters raised and aimed directly at him.

“Don’t move, put your hands up!” The guard in the very front said harshly.

“I think that might require moving,” Juno said. He saw the guards finger flex on the trigger of his blaster and sighed, raising his hands slowly in mock surrender. “There, you caught me, what now?”

The blaster shot to the chest was expected, and he was thankful that he didn’t have to feel his head slam into the stone floor. He’d been acquainted with the ground enough times to know that it wasn’t his favourite feeling in the world, and it would be a rather unfortunate last feeling to have. He blacked out before he was even halfway to the floor, which was also expected. The entire situation played out exactly like he’d imagined it would. What was unexpected, however, was the feeling of waking up an unknown amount of time later. As far as Juno was concerned people didn’t survive getting shot in the heart, and if this was his afterlife it certainly was a strange one. 

He took stock of what he could without opening his eyes or giving away his sudden change in consciousness. He was lying down, that much was obvious, and while that mattress underneath him wasn’t exactly comfortable it was still better than he’d ever had before. Something light was resting on top of his body, probably a blanket, and there were multiple spots on his arms and neck that stung like they’d had needles stuck into them along with a throbbing behind his eyes and a soft pressure on each of his temples. There was a bright light coming through his eyelids and an annoying beeping to his right that gave away that he was in some sort of medical room, the entire set up feeling almost the same as the one on the Carte Blanche, but not exactly. It wasn’t where he was and he knew it, but he allowed himself a second to pretend that he thought otherwise. 

“I know you’re awake, detective.” Someone said, and years of careful practice kept Juno from flinching despite the immediate gut reaction to do exactly that. 

“I’m not awake,” He said simply, refusing to open his eye. “And I’m not a detective.”

“My records would argue otherwise.” They said, and Juno sighed, resigning himself to facing the bright light that was no doubt going to pierce his eye the moment it was open. 

He was right, and he had to close and open his eye a couple more times before he could get to focus on anything. The ceiling was white, that was all he learned from it, and he pushed himself into a sitting position slowly. His entire body was aching and stiff, but he wasn’t going to let it stop him. He’d felt worse. The rest of the room was white as well, from the walls to the floor to the sheets of the bed he was laying in. It looked like the most colour the room had ever seen was the bloodied bandages lying in a waste bin at the end of his bed. Even the other occupant of the room, a man Juno had never seen before in his life, seemed to fit in with the monochrome aesthetic of the room. He was wearing a white lab coat over a white suit and had pale skin and graying hair. Juno felt incredibly out of place. 

“I take it I’m not dead?” He said, the comment drawing the man’s gaze up from the clipboard he had previously been focused on. His paper and the pen and the clipboard itself were all white.

“You sound disappointed.” The man mused, his head tilting to the side a bit in curiosity. 

Juno shrugged and bit back a wince when the movement lit his shoulder up with pain. “I’m running out of exciting ways to die.”

The man seemed to regard that as worthy of writing down, turning his attention back to his clipboard, and Juno took the opportunity to continue his examination of the room. He was still in the clothes he’d been in during the heist, though there were fresh bandages wrapped around one of his hands now. He didn’t remember injuring it, but flexing his fingers sent an unpleasant feeling up his arm, so he supposed he must have at some point between getting shot and waking up. His other hand had an iv hooked up to it and he followed the tube with his eyes from his hand all the way up to the machine it was hooked up to. There were too many screens for him to keep track of. One of them was measuring his heart rate, he could tell that much, and four others were turned away from him, only one more facing him and showing a completely black screen. There were two wires connected to it that Juno managed to follow back to a couple sensors on his temples. 

“You seem awfully calm about this entire ordeal.” The man spoke up again, and Juno turned back to face him. 

He wasn’t, as it were, calm, but he was doing his absolute best to pretend he was and he didn’t know why. “I was a cop in Hyperion City. Waking up in unknown locations was pretty much standard procedure. This is definitely better service than I’ve gotten before.”

The man looked like he was trying to smile but failing and continued. “I suppose you’ve likely got questions.” 

“I’m a curious lady.” Juno said, going to shrug again before remembering how badly it stung and stopping himself before he could.

“Yes, I know all about that, detective Steel,” The man said. He set his clipboard down on a table and dragged over a chair, also white, settling in beside Juno’s bed. “Go ahead, ask away.”

“How do you know my name?” He had more pressing questions, but he figured he should start small and work up to that. This man was being rather generous with information for someone who had kidnapped him. At least, that’s what he assumed had happened.

“Security ran your face through a data bank when we brought you in to see what we were dealing with. I must say, you do have quite the history of trouble, don’t you detective?” His attempt at forcing a smile onto his face seemed to work a bit better this time, but it looked unnatural and sharp, and not in the way Nureyev’s was. Juno’s heart stuttered a bit when he thought of the man. He was going to owe him one hell of an explanation when he got back. He was going to owe all of them that, at the very least, and maybe a couple dozen hugs for Rita.

“What about you? I like to know who’s holding me hostage.” He said, shaking the thought of the crew from his mind. That was something he could focus on later. 

“Arthur Lazarus,” The man said simply. “Though I suppose you’ve heard of me?” 

Juno thought it over for a moment, trying to find any mention of the name in his memories, and came up empty handed. He shook his head. “Nope, not ringing any bells.”

“Interesting.” Arthur hummed, not offering anything else on the subject, and Juno got the distinct feeling that he was missing something incredibly important. 

“Look, where the hell am I?” He asked, his patience quickly starting to fade. 

Arthur looked at him for a moment as though he was studying him, and the weight of his eyes on him made Juno’s skin crawl. He stood up a moment later, his hands folded behind his back as he started to pace, and Juno watched him warily. “You’re a very interesting man, detective Steel. I was curious to see who managed to break into my vault, and I must say I’m not disappointed. My original intention was to kill you, but I can see that you’re going to be a lot more useful to me than that.” 

Juno knew what he meant without him even having to say it, and he allowed himself a few moments of bitterness. He was getting incredibly tired of being kidnapped and experimented on, and it was clear enough that that was what was happening here. At least it was only him this time. He could find some peace in that.

“So you kept me alive so you could kill me slowly instead?” He asked. 

The sound Arthur made could almost have been described as a laugh. “My plan doesn’t include killing you, detective, not if you cooperate.” It sounded so clearly like a lie that Juno didn’t know how he was ever expected to believe him. 

“Anyone who’s spent more than twenty minutes can tell you that I’m not very good at that. You can ask my friends when they inevitably show up.” Juno didn’t actually believe that the crew was coming for him, but it was nice to pretend he at least had a little hope.

“Still in denial, I see.” Arthur hummed, turning his pacing in the direction of the table he’d placed his clipboard on. 

“Denial about what?” He asked, his voice slightly sharper than he wanted it to be. 

“Juno,” Arthur said, moving back to the chair beside his bed and settling down in it, his pen hovering above his paper as he looked at him. “How much do you remember about the last time you woke up?”

That stopped Juno’s thoughts in their tracks. He’d woken up already? That didn’t make sense, he didn’t remember that ever happening, and he had a reasonable enough amount of confidence in his own memories. He curled his fingers into the sheet covering his lap and a sharp spike of pain went through his hand. The bandages, right. Those were unexplained as well, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that maybe he couldn’t trust his own head as much as he thought he could if he couldn’t remember the cause of the injury. 

“Your friends already came to get you, and they didn’t make it out. You were there, Juno, you watched it happen.” Arthur explained, his voice an attempt at being gentle but missing the mark. 

Juno shook his head. “No. No, that didn’t happen, I don’t remember it.”

“Sometimes our brains block out traumatic events to protect us, it’s understandable that it’s hazy.” He said. 

“It didn’t happen!” Juno snapped, but he couldn’t silence the tiny part of his brain that told him that maybe he was wrong. 

Arthur sighed. “I understand that this is hard to process, detective but-”

“Just stop, okay?” Juno cut him off, his eye cold as he stared back at him. “It didn’t happen. I’d remember it.”

“Alright. I’ll leave you to your thoughts, and we can talk more once you’re feeling more level headed.” Arthur nodded slowly, slipping his pen into the breast pocket of his coat and standing up. 

Juno glared at him. “I’m perfectly level headed right now.” 

“I’m sure you think you are. Have a good rest, detective.” He said, nodding once before slipping out of the room and leaving Juno to his thoughts. 

Arthur didn’t come back. The next time someone came into the room it was a nurse named Collette, who changed the bandages on his hand and his shoulder and gave him some food and water and talked to him for a bit. She ran scans on the machine hooked up to his head that he had no idea about the reasoning behind, and it seemed to be information that she wasn’t very inclined to share. Collette was nice, Juno would give her that, but she was also rather icy and didn’t seem very willing to get too close to him. She talked to him though, and she was better company than Arthur, so he put up with her. The next time a nurse came into the room it wasn’t her. 

“Where’s Collette?” He asked as the new nurse changed the bandages on his shoulder. The blaster wound was just barely visible as he turned his head enough, but the angry red colour of it turned him off of the idea rather quickly. 

Tim, at least that’s what their name tag said, looked at Juno curiously as they moved around the room. “There’s no one name Collette here.” 

“Course there is,” Juno scoffed, but he couldn’t help the tiny sliver of doubt that crept into his voice. “She was in here earlier.”

“Nobody has been in here yet today.” Tim said softly, their eyes full of sympathy as they looked at Juno. He didn’t say anything else while they were there. Collette didn’t come back. 

Juno felt slightly crazy, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself. He could have sworn Collette existed, he could still picture her face perfectly, but nobody else who came in or out of his room knew who she was. It was rather disorienting, if he was being honest, to have countless people deny something he was so sure about. He’d never doubted his own mind as much as he did when he considered it. The bandages on his hand, a woman who didn’t actually exist, Arthur’s insistence that the rest of the crew was dead. If he closed his eye and focused hard enough he could almost see something that resembled people and blasters and bodies on the floor, but the unclear image made his stomach turn every time he tried to bring it to the front of his mind.

The scans continued for longer than he could keep track of, but whatever type of experiment he had been dragged into this time felt a lot different than the one Miasma had conducted. He didn't come out of it bleeding every time, for starters, just some of the time and the moment the blood started whichever nurse was in charge of the scan for the day, either Tim or two others whose names Juno hasn't bothered to learn, would stop almost immediately. It was slightly concerning to be treated so well while simultaneously being experimented on for unknown reasons, and he ached to get out of the hospital room he'd been left in and out into the world again, but he knew it wasn't going to happen. Arthur still hasn't come back and it seemed like he was the one he'd have to talk to to get out. 

After a while Juno stopped talking to the nurses when they came in. They would do their scans and change his bandages, leaving him food and water on their way out before leaving him in complete silence until the next one arrived. His hand healed fully, leaving behind a sharp scar along the back of his hand and up his fingers, and he still couldn't remember what had happened to it. The first couple days after the bandages were removed he would stare at it for hours on end, trying to use the shape and the little flashes of memories that sometimes came into his head to piece together some sort of story. He has been a detective, he was supposed to be good at this, but there wasn't enough information for him to make any sort of conclusion and it was driving him crazy. 

He thought he could remember someone bringing him a change of clothes, he knew they must have because he wasn't in his tattered jacket and ripped pants anymore, but there was no real image coming to mind and he didn't know why. His mind had always been the one thing he could rely on, the only part of him nobody would ever be able to break because they couldn't see it, but it didn't seem to be doing its job anymore and he couldn't help but question it. The long hours between nurses visits left him with little to do but think, and the more he thought about it the more he couldn't recall certain events that he knew he had to have known before, and others didn't feel like they had actually happened. Something was wrong and he knew it but he had absolutely no idea what. 

Juno had memorized what all of the nurses footsteps sounded like, growing able to predict with complete success who was coming into the room each shift, so he was more than a little curious when the steps approaching his room sounded new. It was the click of heels that drew his attention first. None of the nurses wore heels. They weren't practical shoes for working in, especially around a medical room, and Tim had mentioned once that they were against the dress code. He didn't have much time to theorize on who it could be before the door opened slightly. 

"Juno Steel, right?" The new arrival asked, and he took a moment to take her in where she stood half in the door. She was tall, certainly taller than him, and everything about her from her hair to her eyes was dark, standing out in a sharp contrast to the void of white Juno had been in for what felt like months. 

"Yeah," He said, pushing himself up into a sorting position, his voice horse from weeks of hardly being used. "Who are you?" 

She smiled kindly at him and stepped fully into the room, closing the door softly behind her. "My name is Kai. I'm here to help." 

"Help with what?" Juno asked, both wary and curious at the same time. He didn't feel like he could trust anyone in this place, but this was by far the most interesting thing that had happened since he got here. 

“I need you to tell me everything you know about the Lazarus Project.” Kai said. 

Everything that came out of her mouth made no sense to him. “The what?”

“Listen, I don’t know what Arthur told you but I promise it’s a lie,” She explained, walking over to his bed with quick strides. She sat down gently on the edge of it and looked intently at him as she spoke. “He’s a dangerous man, and I need to know what he’s been doing to you, please.”

Juno looked over at the security camera in the corner of the room before turning his attention back to her. “They’re not gonna be happy to hear that when they watch the tapes back.”

Kai laughed a little and smiled. “I disabled the cameras. I’d give it about five more minutes before someone is in here to see what’s going on, so talk.”

“I don’t know anything.” He said softly. 

“I know you’re confused, and I know you want answers. I do too, but I need you to help me, Juno.” She pleaded, reaching out and grabbing one of his hands in hers. 

He didn’t know why, but he had the strong urge to trust this girl. He didn’t know the first thing about her aside from her name, and there was no logical reason that he should believe anything she said, but he wanted to anyway. There was just something about her that clicked and drew him in, and while his gut instincts weren’t always great they were the same ones that had led him to Rita and Buddy and Nureyev, so maybe they weren’t always bad either. 

“I’m being scanned for something, but I don’t know what.” Juno said. 

Kai nodded slowly and bit her lip in thought. “Is it the machine hooked up to your head?”

He nodded and she stood up quickly, moving over to examine the screen he’d spent so long trying to figure out the numbers on before giving up. She seemed to be just as confused as he was, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as she stared at the screen, following the wires between Juno’s temples to the screen and back again. It didn’t seem to be getting her anywhere. 

“I don’t get it.” Juno said after a while, and Kai sighed, moving back over to the bed and perching herself on the edge of it again. 

“I don’t either. You used to be a detective, right?” She asked, and Juno nodded. “I need you to do some detecting. See if you can figure out what they’re looking for without arousing suspicion.”

Juno huffed out a short laugh. “No offence, but I don’t know you. Why should I be helping you?”

Kai sighed and leaned forward, grabbing his hand again. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’m scared of whatever it is Arthur is planning and I can’t do this on my own. You’re my best bet here, Juno, please.”

And how the hell was he supposed to say no to that? It was such an easy request to reject, because that wasn’t the type of thing he did anymore. He wasn’t a detective or a cop or a partner in good like he’d been before. Now he was just a criminal, a thief who broke into a vault to steal a book and got himself into this situation. It should have been easy to say no, but there was determination in her eyes and a hopeful optimism in her voice that made it feel like the most important task in the world was to help her, and Juno had always been weak to a pretty face and ideas for the greater good, especially when the two were combined. 

“Yeah,” He said finally, the response coming out of him on a breath he’d been holding for too long as he thought. “I’ll help you. Seems like a good cause, I can find it in me to care.” 

Kai’s entire face lit up as she grinned at him and the brightness of it made his entire decision worth it in his eyes. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

She squeezed his hand tightly, the grin on her face nowhere near faltering, and the contact was so nice to receive after going so long without it that he could have cried. He didn’t end up crying, but he did end up being distracted enough that he didn’t hear the footsteps in the hallway approaching the room, and the door swinging open full force started them both enough that they jumped. Kai spun around to face the door, her hand still clasped firmly in Juno’s and tension pulling on her entire body. Arthur stood in the doorway, his graying hair slightly messier than it had been the last time Juno saw him and his lab coat thrown on haphazardly. He seemed to still the moment he saw the two of them, and the panic that had been in his eyes a moment before bled completely out of them. 

“Kai.” He breathed, letting out a light laugh that sounded far too mechanical. 

“Morning uncle.” Kai smiled at him. 

Juno tried not to let his confusion show on his face. Kai hadn’t said that she was related to Arthur, and in all honesty she looked absolutely nothing like him. He matched the white room better than it should have been possible for a person to, and Kai couldn’t have stood out against it more. She was sharp and thing where he was slightly rounder and larger. They even held themselves differently, confident in two completely different ways that Juno couldn’t properly articulate. 

“Is something wrong?” She asked, her voice dripping with a faux innocence that Arthur clearly didn’t pick up on. 

“The security cameras in the room are down,” Arthur explained, and it took Juno a moment to remember that Kai had said she’d disabled them. He squeezed her hand a little bit and he could see her bite back a smile. “I came to check on Juno, but I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“He seemed lonely.” Kai shrugged, leaning back on her free hand on the bed. 

“It is pretty boring in here.” Juno agreed. She shot him a wink over her shoulder. 

“You should let him go out, interact with the world. He needs a shower and a change of clothes and human interaction. Whatever treatments you’re doing on him aren’t gonna do him any good if he’s going crazy in here by himself instead.” She raised an eyebrow at him when she finished. 

Arthur looked as though even considering it pained him, but after a moment he sighed and nodded. “After his treatment tomorrow you can take him out to do something.” 

Kai beamed at him. “Yes! Thank you!” 

It was clear from the way he looked at her that Arthur cared for Kai quite a bit, and it seemed like she was trying not to care about him as well. Part of Juno wondered what he could be doing that would turn someone who seemed so close to him against him so completely, and it made him even more sure in his decision to help her. 

“I’m going to check on the camera, but you can feel free to stay here and keep him company.” Arthur gave her one of his quick, unnatural smiles before slipping out of the room and leaving the two of them alone once again. 

Kai let out a sudden laugh, falling back onto the mattress and curling in on herself as giggled wracked her body. Juno didn’t know what was so funny, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling into laughter along with her, and the two sat there giggling like children for a couple of minutes before they managed to compose themselves. Kai sat up and pulled herself into the middle of the bed, crossing her legs as she settled down so she was facing him. 

“What happened to your eye?” She asked suddenly, and Juno tensed up for a moment before relaxing again. 

“It’s a long story.” He said. 

Kai settled more fully onto the bed, looking at him with rapt attention and a gleam in her eyes. “I’ve got time. Tell me everything there is to know about Juno Steel.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we finally know what happened to Juno. At least, what he thinks happened. We also got some more insight into who Kai is and what her relationship with Juno looks like and how it started, and if you're still confused I'm glad because that was my intention. What do you think Arthur is planning? How do you feel about Kai? Does Juno need a hug? I love reading all of your responses to my questions so please please leave me some. 
> 
> It's still Tuesday for me so this is a day early on my end at the very least, which I like to think is rather impressive for the longest chapter so far. This was a hefty chapter so thank you for sticking it out and reading through it all. I love writing from Juno's perspective so you can expect to see some more of these in the future as we catch up with what happened on his end during those nine months he was gone. 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to leave please leave me some


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them :)

Peter really didn’t know what to say to Juno. Distrusting your own brain was a horrible thing to go through, and he’d spent nine months doing it, nine months thinking everyone who cared about him was dead. The lady had a habit of getting himself into situations where he was being experimented on it seemed, and his heart ached for all the past traumas that had likely brought up. It was possible that it didn’t, he supposed, but he didn’t like to think that he was the only one who woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with a deck of cards at the front of his mind. Nobody seemed to know how to respond, and Juno continued to shift uncomfortably as they all watched him. Finally Rita seemed to come back to herself, crossing the room to Juno quickly and pulling him into a hug. Neither of them had to say anything for the tension to bleed out of Juno’s body like he’d just been shot. 

“That’s a pretty cool scar.” Rita commented when she pulled away from him, grabbing his hand and turning it over a couple of times so she could look at the sparks of white that shot out from it and across his skin. 

“I guess it is,” Juno hummed in agreement, watching her as she examined his hand. “Wish I could remember how I got it.” 

“It’ll come back to you eventually.” Kai assured him, and he shot her a weak smile over Rita’s shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry, darling.” Buddy was the first of them to speak up, her eyes filled with tears when Peter turned to look at her. Her carefully crafted composure seemed to be cracking, and it was both a terrifying and heart wrenching sight. 

“Sorry for what?” Juno asked, his voice clear in the way it portrayed that he had no idea what she was talking about. 

Buddy let out a wet laugh and wiped her eyes. “We didn’t come for you. We should have, but I didn’t want to risk the lives of the rest of the crew and we never came for you, darling. I’m so, so sorry.” 

Peter had never seen Buddy cry before, but it was clear in the way he looked at her that Juno had seen her fall apart like this before. Not for the first time he wondered how the two of them knew each other. A private detective and a notorious criminal weren’t the most likely of matches, to be fair, but he didn’t ask. He had a million and one questions for the detective but he never asked because he knew it wasn’t his place, not anymore. 

“It’s not your fault, Buddy.” Juno told her. Vespa pulled her tightly to her side as he laughed again, shaking her head a few times. 

“But it is.” She said, and nobody said anything else for a long moment. 

Juno seemed to be taking them all in, trying to convince his brain that all of this was real, that it was actually happening, and Peter couldn’t blame him. He was holding it together incredibly well for the circumstances, all things considered, and had he been in the same situation Peter was positive he would be a hysterical mess by now, as much as he was unwilling to admit it. Juno, on the other hand, seemed more shocked than anything, his movements slow and calculated as if one wrong step would shatter everything and send him straight back where he was before. It was the same as he’d been the night after Miasma, and Peter recognized it well enough to know it was his way of dealing with trauma. 

“Are you alright Mista Steel?” Rita asked gently. 

Juno turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. “Of course I am.”

Rita whirled on Kai immediately, who seemed a little shocked to be addressed. “Is he lying to me, cause I feel like he’s lying to me.”

“Hey, I’m not lying!” Juno argued. 

“Oh really?” Rita asked, clear disbelief in her voice. “Because last time you fell off the face of mars you came back missing an eye for the second time, fighting off radiation poisoning from being outside of a dome for too long, and had adopted a sewer rabbit and named her Small Fry. I really thought the radiation was starting to drive you insane, boss, and that’s really saying something when it comes to you.”

Peter couldn’t help the momentary concern that took over him at the explanation, but Juno didn’t seem to bat an eye, and that only worried him more. Buddy and Jet also looked rather unconcerned, which pointed at them having something to do with Juno’s supposed disappearance, and for a moment Peter wondered if that was perhaps how they met. 

“That was quite the ordeal, wasn’t it?” Buddy mused, confirming Peter’s suspicions. 

“And the time before that you came back missing an eye for the first time and wouldn’t talk to me for a week! I found you crying in your office ten times, Mista Steel!” Rita continued. 

The first part of that sounded rather familiar, but the second half was completely new information to Peter. Had Juno really been that distraught after everything that happened? Realistically he knew it must have been rather traumatizing for him to have his eye practically explode and attempt suicide via ancient martian bomb, especially on top of the days of torture with Peter and what was probably an even worse amount of it without him, but it hadn’t occured to him before that it might have been that bad. Juno was always so good at pretending things didn’t bother him as much as he did, and Peter had been rather selfish in his consideration of the aftermath of everything. He’d never asked if Juno was okay, never questioned him when he insisted everything was fine, and it was clear to him now that he couldn’t make that mistake again.

“He’s okay, love.” Kai insisted, laying a gentle hand on Rita’s shoulder. For a moment it looked as though Rita’s brain short circuited before she started giggling like crazy. Juno just rolled his eye. 

“Are we allowed to kill your uncle?” Vespa asked suddenly, speaking up for the first time in a long while. If it hadn’t been for her unwavering presence at Buddy’s side Peter probably would have forgotten she was there entirely. “Or do we have to stop at hurting him really bad?”

“I thought you hated me.” Juno said, and Vespa scoffed at him. 

“I still do, I just hate this guy more.” She insisted, and even to Peter, who knew her less than any other member of the crew, the lie was obvious. 

Kai laughed a little and shook her head. “You can’t kill him yet, but we’ll see what I can do later.” The smiles she and Vespa gave each other were equally deadly. 

“First we need to get out of here.” Peter said. Juno turned to look at him and he felt his heart stutter in his chest when their eyes met, which was an incredibly ridiculous feeling for him to have. 

“Nu-Ransom’s right, we can’t stay here.” He said. Kai eyed him suspiciously as he stuttered over the name, but she didn’t question it, and Peter wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for that or not. 

“Back to the Carte Blanche, then?” Buddy suggested, and a chorus of agreements rang out around the room. 

Kai moved over to Juno and looped her arm around his. “We need to leave separately. It’ll cause too much suspicion if we just disappear.”

Peter absolutely hated the idea of letting Juno out of his sight again, but Kai was right and he knew it. That didn’t ease the feeling of absolute dread that grabbed ahold of his lungs and refused to stop squeezing, though. If anything it just made its vice grip tighter. 

“Be careful.” Jet insisted, and Kai laughed. 

“Where’s the fun in careful?” She grinned, sending him a sharp wink and a laugh before turning and whisking Juno out of the room without a single complaint from the lady, leaving the rest of them without him once again.

None of them said anything for a moment, all instead staring at the place where the two of them had previously been. The dread seized Peter’s lungs once again now that Juno wasn’t in front of him, and he couldn’t fight off the tiny, irrational thought that he’d never truly been there at all. He followed the rest of them back to the Carte Blanche without truly processing anything, only vaguely aware of his own feet moving. It was strange for him to feel so unaware of himself, the number of times it had happened able to be counted on one hand. Not being fully aware of your body and everything around it was a dangerous thing in his profession, but he couldn’t convince himself to care just now. His thoughts kept floating back to Juno Steel and the haunted look in his eye that Peter saw every time he closed his. 

Buddy sent Juno the location on the Carte Blanche once they reached it and all that was left was for them to wait. The waiting was the worst part, even more so than the not knowing, and part of him felt like at any moment he was going to wake up and Juno would still be gone. It was exactly the type of mental tortue he expected to come up with, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it the more time passed the more it was starting to seem like it could be the reality of the situation. He’d woken up from many nightmares that started off just like this before, and he wasn’t excited about the possibility of it happening again. Everyone else seemed to be in similar states, so he could take comfort in that at the very least. 

Jet, Vespa, and Buddy had tucked themselves away in a back corner, whispering sharply to one another and casting constant glances towards their comms while Rita paced up and down the floor nervously. Peter had made a home for himself on the hood of the Ruby 7, and as much as he tried to give off the impression that he wasn’t bothered he knew tension must be radiating off of him in waves. The door on the other end of the ship clicked as it unlocked and everyone stilled immediately. Buddy cast another quick glance down to her comms and smiled, turning her attention to the door just as it opened. Kai stood on the other side, her arm around Juno who was staring down at his key like he was shocked it had even worked. The fact that he still had it was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. The vice grip on his lungs snapped at the sight of him and he felt like he could breathe clearly again, if only just for this moment.

“Mista Steel!” Rita shouted, rushing over to him and pulling him into yet another hug. Peter didn’t think he’d ever seen the lady accept so much physical affection in such a short period of time, but nine months could change a person. He knew that first hand. 

“Alright, enough with the love fest.” Juno scolded her, but he made no move to try and push her away before she let go. 

“Welcome back, darling.” Buddy smiled, walking across the ship to greet him. Vespa followed behind her but stayed back, and Jet joined Peter over at the Ruby 7, rolling his eyes in fond annoyance at his position atop the hood. 

“It looks the exact same.” Juno remarked, looking around the room with something akin to awe in his eye. 

There was a blue lipstick mark on his cheek that hadn't been there before and clearly didn’t belong to Kai that sent another spark of jealousy through Peter’s body. He supposed this was a feeling he was going to have to start getting used to. Both of his sleeves had been rolled up, revealing a new collection of marked skin that Rita almost instantly noticed, pouncing on him with plenty of questions as she pulled him through the door and shut it behind them, Kai trailing after and conducting her own survey of the room. It wasn’t surprising that Juno had brought her, but it felt strange to see someone else in their space nonetheless. Peter watched the scene from his spot on the hood of the Ruby 7, a fond smile etching itself onto his face despite his best efforts to stop it. 

“You care about him.” Jet said, and Peter turned his attention to him. He wasn’t looking at him, his eyes fixed on everyone else and his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the car next to him. As much grief as he gave Peter about it he was also guilty of using the car as a support more often than not. 

“Pardon?” Peter asked. Jet looked at him briefly out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to the others.

“Juno,” He said simply, and it made Peter’s chest burn with some unknown feeling. “You care about him.”

Peter scoffed and turned away from him, watching as Juno explained the new collection of scars on his exposed skin to Rita and Buddy, Kai jumping in every once and a while with her own contribution to the stories. “No I don’t. I just don’t want him to get hurt. Is that a crime?”

“Certainly not. I also wish to see no harm come to Juno, but you cannot deny that your feelings towards him run deeper than general concern for his well being.” 

Jet was always the type of person to say things so plainly that they had to sound like fact, and it made Peter uncomfortable to know how easily he could see right through him. He was an observant man, Peter would give him that, and he was rather smart too, but anonymity and secrecy had always been the only shield Peter had. He’d gotten comfortable with it, confident even. Confiding in people and speaking about his feelings wasn’t one of his strong suits, and he hadn’t ever considered he might find need to do so with Jet, but the man standing next to him seemed too easy to talk to that he couldn’t stop words from tumbling out of his mouth unprompted. 

“Have you ever loved someone, Jet?” He asked, and he held his breath the moment the words were out in the open, prepared for the judgement that would no doubt come his way at such a ridiculous question. He didn’t get it. Instead Jet hummed slightly in thought, his eyes following Juno and Kai as he gave her a tour of the room. 

“That is quite a complex question. There are many types of love, and many forms it can take, and I have experienced some of those, yes. I love Buddy as though she is my blood, and I’ve grown to feel much the same about Rita since meeting her. I feel a strong urge to protect Juno, and though I cannot yet name the type of love I feel for him I know it’s there. I love Vespa as a friend, and that feeling also extends to you.” He explained. 

Peter fought to keep himself from blushing, but for some reason the thought of Jet loving him, even in the most platonic way, flustered him more than anything else. “A foolish decision, really.”

“Maybe so, but it is the one I have made,” Jet said simply. Peter looked at him out of the corner of his eye, watching as he smiled fondly at the sight of his family whole again. “I have not, however, experienced the type of love Vespa and Buddy have for each other, and I find that I am incapable of it, which is something I’ve grown to accept. You, however, are more than capable of that type of love, no matter how strong your urge to deny it, and it is clear that it is the type of love you feel towards Juno.”

“I don’t love him.” He huffed, and he knew that Jet was fully aware that it was a lie. 

Peter had loved Juno, that was true, but it was a long gone feeling. There was no spark in his chest when he looked at the detective, not anymore, and he knew that the love he felt wasn’t there anymore. Part of him wanted to consider that he’d never loved him in the first place, that his body was just running high on adrenaline and the euphoric feeling of not dying and he’d convinced himself that the shared traumas they’d endured could equate to love, and everything would be so much more simple if that were the truth. But Juno had been in his head, seen the darkest parts of himself that he’d never intended to share with anyone, and he didn’t mind. He’d given the lady his name, and that was all he had. So yes, he’d loved Juno Steel before, but that wasn’t the case, not now. It couldn’t be. 

“Mista Steel, you need to call Mista Mercury!” Rita said, her voice sudden and loud and dragging Peter and Jet out of their quiet conversation. 

Peter turned his attention back over to them, catching Juno’s eye briefly and seeing something in it that he couldn’t quite place. He turned away as soon as he noticed Peter looking at him and scoffed. 

“What do I have to call him for?” He asked.

Rita leveled him with a look that was as serious as she could get. “He’s been real worried about you, Mista Steel.”

“Mercury,” Kai hummed, speaking more to herself than anyone else as she clearly thought something over. “Mick Mercury?” 

“You’ve met him?” Rita asked her, a mixture of confusion and excitement coating her voice. 

Kai smiled softly at her and shook her head. “No. I’ve just heard a lot about him from Juno.” 

Peter tried not to let that sting. It seemed that Kai had earned more of Juno’s trust than he ever had, and while he knew it made sense it still hurt a bit to think about. He’d heard the name Mick Mercury in passing before, sure. Juno had given him life in a couple of stories about his childhood he’d told Peter during their days in captivity, and he’d become quite well acquainted with the sound of his voice over Rita’s comms during the past few months, but it was clear that Kai’s knowledge of the man ran deeper than that. The way she’d said his name came with a familiarity that came from the type of stories people told those they trusted most. 

“He called a lot while you were missing, boss, and I think he deserves a call from you at the very least. Maybe a gift basket.” Rita nodded as she said it like she’d come up with the greatest idea possible. 

Juno rolled his eye fondly. “Mick doesn’t do gift baskets.” 

“I hate to cut the bonding, darlings, but we really do need to leave this planet and come up with some sort of plan.” Buddy interrupted, watching the two of them bicker with a loving expression on her face. It was the calmest she’d looked since before the heist where Juno disappeared. 

“Right, yeah,” Juno nodded a couple of times before turning to Kai. “You coming with us?” 

“You think I’m gonna leave you?” She asked in return, and he smiled.

“It was worth a shot.” He shrugged.

Kai shoved his shoulder and laughed. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, love.”

“How are you going to explain your absence to your family?” Jet asked. 

Juno and Kai looked at each other for a long moment. It was clear that neither of them had considered that part of their plan, and it felt like such a Juno thing to overlook that it almost made Peter smile. Kai smiled at Juno, that same deadly grin as before back on her face, and there was clear nervousness in the lady’s eye when she did so. 

“We never went on a honeymoon.” Her smile grew as she spoke and Juno groaned loudly. 

“Peter’s never gonna let it go if we tell them that’s where we are.” He complained. It was slightly odd to hear his name in reference to someone else, Peter would admit, and he couldn’t help but voice his confusion. He was a curious man, and he’d heard a lot of names today that he’d never heard before. It wasn’t a crime to ask about one of them. 

“Who’s Peter?” He asked, and Juno’s eye snapped over to him. There was that same look as before in it, and he still had no idea what it meant. 

“My brother,” Kai told him. “He’s been bugging us about going on our honeymoon for weeks now. That must have been a little confusing for you to hear, sorry.”

She smiled sheepishly at him, and for a moment Peter thought he could see what about her had made Juno trust her so completely. They had such similar airs about them, both overlooking small things they deemed unimportant and facing some sort of consequence for it later, even if it was as simple as being question about who they were talking about. She seemed like the type of woman you could trust with anything, and while Peter didn’t he didn’t blame Juno for the fact that he did. 

“We never said you could come with us.” Vespa snarled at her. 

Buddy put her hand on her shoulder and shushed her. “Of course you can come, darling. Juno is part of our family, and if that makes you part of it now then so be it. We have a spare bedroom you can use during your stay.”

Kai’s entire face lit up as she grinned at Buddy. This time it wasn’t sharp, it was just happy. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Buddy smiled softly at her before turning around and making her way out of the room, Vespa following with her as she was attached to her side. “Now come along, we need to leave.” 

Peter trailed behind the rest of them as they made their way out of the room and into the rest of the Carte Blanche, lost in his thoughts as he walked. Many different types of love, Jet had said. He couldn’t help but dwell on it for a moment longer, even after the conversation was long over. Juno was giving Kai a brief explanation of the space and a tour of the common area once they reached it, and she was watching him with rapt attention and fond eyes. Peter wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, so he didn’t pay too much attention to it. Instead he watched as Rita followed Juno around the ship, trailing after him everywhere he went and her mouth moving at a million miles an hour with all the questions she had for him. Juno indulged her, just as he always did, and it was clear that there was a strong love between the two of them. Vespa and Buddy were watching them, standing so close that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. If soulmates existed he thought that they must be, for there was no other explanation for just how solid the link between them was. 

Kai told Juno a joke Peter couldn’t hear and he burst out into loud laughter, the sound genuine and scratchy as it rang out the room, and Peter’s heart swelled at the sound of it. He hadn’t heard Juno laugh like that in so long, maybe not ever, and he couldn’t help but be thankful for Kai for her ability to produce that type of reaction from him. The detective had opened up a lot in the time he and Peter spent apart, it was easy to see. He hadn’t been in the greatest place when the two of them had been kidnapped, and even if it was almost three years ago the wounds still felt fresh. Peter admired the strength he had to be able to move on from all that they’d been though, and he didn’t blame him for leaving, not anymore. He couldn’t blame him for anything when he saw just how much better he was now than he had been before. It hadn’t been completely obvious to Peter just how bad things were for Juno until he saw him while he was trying to get better, and suddenly he was so glad he’d left him because he knew he wouldn’t have been able to do that with him and the only thing he ever wanted was for Juno to be happy. That thought made his mind stop in its tracks, and he couldn’t fight off the smile that formed on his face with it. 

Perhaps he did love Juno Steel, he thought. Perhaps he had never stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one sure was an adventure wasn't it? We got some angst, some fluff, and some Peter and Jet bonding. I'm really curious as to how you guys are feeling about this story so far, so please please let me know all of your thoughts and feelings because I really wanna know! Do you trust Kai? What do you think Arthur is planning? Does Juno still love Peter? Absolutely none of these questions are to be answered in the next chapter, but you should stick around and read it anyway.
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find

It had been hard for Peter to sleep since Juno disappeared. Sleep hadn’t come particularly easily to him before, but in those nine months it felt like he had hardly slept at all. He didn’t let it interfere with his work, he made sure of that. There was only so much slacking Buddy would take from him before she threw him out of the crew, even if she insisted he was family now. Trust also wasn’t something that came to him easily. Part of him had expected that he’d finally be able to sleep easier once Juno was back, but if anything it seemed to be worse. Falling asleep felt impossible when just across the hall was the person he’d wanted to see more than anyone else for almost a year. It still felt a bit like a dream, he thought, one he’d had far too many times before, and as juvenile as it sounded he was scared that if he slept he’d wake up again and Juno wouldn’t be there. If it was a dream he was going to prolong it as much as he could, he decided, even if it made the pain of it being anything else even more unbearable. 

His inability to sleep explained why he was the only one to hear the footsteps, though it wasn’t helped by the fact that every other passenger of the ship was a surprisingly deep sleeper. At first he just excused it as the sounds of the ship, they were floating on a giant hunk of metal through the vastness of space, after all. That tended to come with some odd creaks and groans that he’d gotten used to as his time on the ship went on. But they got clearer after a while, the fact that they were footsteps an undeniable fact instead of just an assumption, and he decided that Rita must have been on one of her late night snack runs. It was something he’d caught her in the middle of plenty of times, so it wouldn’t surprise him if that was the case. They didn’t stop though, and after a while he had to accept that he was the only person who had heard them and could go investigate. He doubted it was anything bad, but it was still hard for him to drag himself out of his bed to check it out, even if he’d just been staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping. He wasn’t quite sure who he’d been expecting to be pacing the hallways, but he was still surprised to see that it was Juno. 

Juno Steel, the most annoying person about sleep Peter had ever met, was pacing the hallway in the middle of the night. He had one hand tucked into the pocket of his sweatpants and the other tracing gently along the wall as he walked as though he was trying to commit the feel of the metal to memory. His eye was closed, but he’d very clearly heard Peter’s door open as he spun around to face him the moment he stepped out into the hall, his entire body tense as though he was preparing for a fight. He settled a bit when he saw who it was and Peter tried not to read too much into it.

“Juno.” He said, raising an eyebrow slightly as he looked at him. 

“Nureyev.” Juno breathed, his voice just barely loud enough to carry across the hall towards him, and the sound of his name, his real name, in Juno’s voice almost dropped him to his knees right there. 

“It’s the middle of the night.” Peter said.

The look Juno gave him told him that he wasn't amused by the obvious piece of information. “I know. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Neither could I,” Peter said, smiling softly in understanding before nodding his head back towards his door. “Care to come in for some company? Unless you’d prefer to continue wearing a hole in the floor, in which case don’t let me stop you.”

Juno looked behind him for a second, his eye drifting from the door to Rita’s room to the door of the one they’d given Kai, clearly thinking over what Peter was offering. He stilled at that, rethinking his question and cringing when he realized what it might have sounded like. For a second he wanted to take it back, to clarify that that wasn’t what he meant, it was purely an offer to talk or sit and do nothing, just for him not to be alone, but Juno was speaking again before he had the chance.

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, his voice so quiet and unlike the detective Peter had known before that it hurt his heart a little bit to hear. 

Peter moved to the side and gestured towards his door in an invitation for Juno to go first. He smiled a little in response, the action small yet thankful, and moved past him into the room. He kept his hand in front of him slightly on his blind side as he walked, running his fingers along the door frame as he stepped through. The action was small, hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking, but Peter was always looking at Juno, greedily determined to take in every single piece of information he could get his hands on to file away in the new cabinet he had set up just for him. He hadn’t had much of an opportunity to put anything into it for the past nine months, but now that Juno was back he was fully prepared to fill it with as much as he could. 

He followed Juno into the room and let the door close behind him, plunging the two of them into a silence that felt far too unnatural between them. For the first time that day he felt like he could truly see how tired Juno really was. The bags under his eyes were more prominent than they had ever been before, even during Miasma’s experiments, and his entire body seemed to droop under the weight of something Peter couldn’t see but he desperately wanted to take from him anyways. His hand twitched continuously at his side as he looked around the room, eye lingering on every spot as if he was trying to pick out a detail that would disprove its existence. This wasn’t the Juno Steel Peter remembered. He was far too quiet and far too small to be the loud, reckless lady that Peter loved so much, and he swore to himself that he would make Arthur Lazarus pay for everything he did to change him so drastically. 

“Might I ask what’s keeping you awake?” Peter asked, breaking the silence that was hanging heavily in the room. 

Juno scratched at his neck nervously, pulling at the strap of his eye patch and his fixed his working eye on the floor instead of Peter. “Still processing, I guess. This doesn’t feel completely real.”

He couldn’t imagine how difficult the entire situation must have been for Juno. He’d lost just about everything in one blow and then got it all back just as he was starting to come to terms with the loss. It was a situation that would weigh down heavily on anyone, and Peter admired Juno for how incredibly brave he was being, even if he could tell it was all an act he was putting on to keep them from worrying about him. He knew the lady well enough to recognize the expression, the way he held himself. There was no doubt in his mind that the past nine months had brought up a plethora of old traumas Juno had never intended to relieve but had been forced to anyway. It was especially cruel now that he was unsure if any of it had ever truly happened or if it was all in his head. 

Peter hummed in understanding. “I was feeling much the same. It’s good to have you back, but part of me doesn’t want to believe it quite yet.” 

“Yeah.” Juno sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. 

He lingered on a new scar on his cheek for a moment longer than anywhere else, the action seemingly unconscious. It hadn’t been as obvious earling, but now that his face was bare of makeup the thick white slash stood out sharply against his dark skin. Peter longed to ask how he got it, to relearn every mark on Juno’s body and commit them all to memory, but he knew it wasn’t his place, not right now. Even if he still loved Juno it was clear to him that the feelings weren’t reciprocated, not anymore. 

“Why didn’t you wake Kai?” He was thinking out loud, and the question seemed to startle Juno, but he responded anyway. 

“Didn’t wanna bother her, is all.” He shrugged. 

Peter was tempted to say that he doubted Kai, or anyone on the ship for that matter, would be bothered by him waking them because he was too afraid to sleep. It was clear that she cared greatly for him, and as much as it stung to think about Peter knew she was his greatest support system right now. Still, Juno was here with him now, and there was no way he was going to leave him to fight off his anxieties and traumas alone. Not again. He was never going to leave Juno on his own again, he decided, and he knew he was going to do everything in his power to stick to it. 

“You can always talk to me, if you want,” Peter offered, sitting down on his bed with his back against the headboard and patting the space beside him in invitation. “I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

Juno looked like he was fighting a mental battle with himself for a moment, his eye moving between Peter’s face and the space on the bed next to him a dozen times before he seemed to make up his mind. He took a couple steps closer, lowering himself onto the mattress slowly. He let out a shaky breath once he settled and it made Peter’s chest clench. More silence followed as he settled down fully, and Peter didn't rush him. Processing was part of it, and Juno had said that's what he was doing. It wasn't up to him to decide the rate at which he got to do that. 

"How much did I miss?" Juno asked after a couple long minutes. He was settled down beside Peter, far enough away that they weren't touching but close enough that he could feel him at his side. 

"Not much. A lot of worry, mostly." Peter shrugged, and he saw a small flash of guilt cross Juno's face. 

"Sorry about that." He said awkwardly, fixing his eye on the blanket underneath them. 

Peter scoffed. "I don't think you exactly chose to get kidnapped, Juno." 

“I shouldn’t have tried to get them away from Vespa,” Juno insisted. He still wasn’t looking at Peter. “It’s my fault any of this happened to me.”

Peter turned to face him properly, reaching out a hand and lifting Juno’s chin gently to make him look him in the eye. “You did what you thought was right, and nobody can fault you for that. It’s in your nature to sacrifice yourself for the sake of other people and none of us have ever held that against you.” 

“You’re forgetting how mad you were after everything with Miasma.” Juno reminded him. He had stiffened up a bit at Peter’s touch, but he wasn’t pulling away from him, and that was certainly more than Peter had been hoping for. 

“I wasn’t mad, Juno,” He said, making sure it came across in his tone that he was being completely truthful. “I was terrified that I was going to lose you.” 

Juno shrugged his hand away. “And you did anyway. I left you.” 

“We’re past that already.” Peter insisted. 

He didn’t blame Juno for leaving, and he hadn’t for a long time. Sure, he had been sad and slightly bitter, but every part of him knew the situation he presented Juno with wasn’t a fair one. He gave him an ultimatum and no time to think it over before he expected him to have an answer for him, and that wasn’t how it should have gone. The opportunity to get over the shock of the torture and almost dying and the adrenaline still pumping through their veins as they tumbled into bed that night was the most important thing he could have given him and he didn’t. It didn’t take swallowing a martian mind reading pill to know what Juno had been thinking, either. Peter handed everything to a man who had plainly decided that he deserved nothing long before he met him and expected him to take it. His choice should have been obvious, but he had been so blinded by the emotions he’d felt that he’d chosen to ignore what was staring him in the face. Hindsight was twenty twenty, after all. 

“You know, I couldn’t help thinking of you when I was down there.” Juno said, looking up from the bed to meet Peter’s eyes. 

“You thought of me?” Peter asked. 

He nodded. “Yeah. I kept thinking, you know, it’s a good thing Nureyev isn’t here this time. This time he doesn’t have to watch me throw my life away. I felt so shitty for doing that to you again, but I couldn’t figure anything else out.”

“You did it to keep the rest of us safe.” Peter said firmly, reaching over and grabbing one of Juno’s hands between his before he even thought it through. He still for a brief second, but Juno squeezed his hand and he clamped his fingers around his tighter. 

“It’s not just that,” Juno sighed, using his free hand to rub harshly at his good eye. Peter winced in sympathy at the force of it. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not risking my neck for somebody else, Nureyev, whether it’s Vespa or you or all of fucking Hyperion City. I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not doing that.” 

It was a fact Peter already knew, because that was who Juno Steel was. He was, above all else, a good man, and if that tended to come with a bit of a martyr complex then so be it. There was nothing he was more willing to do than throw himself under a blade to save somebody else. At first Peter had thought it was purely him being a suicidal idiot with a need to play the hero, but the longer he knew Juno the more he realized that that wasn’t the case. He was just a fundamentally good person, and there was no other way he knew how to do good than by saving people. It was ingrained in his very being, always the protective one, the older brother turned cop turned private detective. Everything he knew was risking himself, and there was no way Peter could blame him for that. To do so would be blaming him for being himself, and that was impossible when there was no one else in the universe that Peter cared about more. 

“Did I ever tell you about the THEIA?” Juno asked suddenly, his eye snapping up to meet Peter’s once again. 

He shook his head. “I don’t believe you have.” 

“I don’t remember telling you, but I never really know if I can believe my memories these days.” He shrugged in an exceptionally half hearted manner and Peter couldn’t stop himself from tightening his grip on Juno’s hand. 

“Tell me now.” He insisted. 

Juno looked up at him for a long, long moment, his eye roaming over his face to search for a single speck of pity, and Peter knew if he found any he’d shut down completely. He didn’t pity Juno, though, because he knew him too well for that. Instead he found himself gazing at him with admiration at the pure strength he embodied. Peter might have been much taller than Juno, and he might have had to tilt his head to look him in the eye when they sat side by side, but in that moment Peter thought he looked like a giant. 

“Did you hear about the Hyperion election?” Juno asked, and from the tone of his voice alone Peter could tell it wasn’t going to be a pleasant story. 

“I’m afraid I don’t keep up with politics much.” Peter said sheepishly. 

Juno huffed out a brief laugh, spinning one of Peter’s rings around his finger absentmindedly. “Yeah, I figured. Well, long story short it was a bit of a mess.” 

And so he started on his explanation, Peter listening to his every word with rapt attention. It wasn’t even something he had to focus on, not really. Juno was an excellent storyteller, explaining things in detail and making sure he understood every small thought that went through his mind in reference to the story. Peter was vaguely horrified, the more details Juno provided the more he could feel his heart shatter and mend itself back together before shattering again. The feeling of being confided in was odd but not unwelcome, especially when it came to the detective sitting next to him. Well, he wasn’t much of a detective anymore, but Peter couldn’t bring himself to stop referring to him as such. Ramses O'Flaherty was, among other things, dead, and Peter had to remind himself of that a few times throughout the course of Juno’s explanation. If he didn’t he thought he might have vowed to kill the man. He’d put Juno through so much, made him question so many things about himself, and all for what? He didn’t even get the city he wanted, not in the end. Juno had gone through all of that for nothing, and it made Peter’s blood boil. 

“And that was it,” Juno finished, fixing his eye on Peter’s face to watch for any sort of reaction. “I had to get off of Mars after that, Nureyev.” 

Peter squeezed Juno’s hand in his a bit tighter, trying to convey all his shock and horror and absolute astonishment through just the simple action because he couldn’t find the words to express it. “I can’t blame you, I think I’d feel much the same.” 

“Am I a bad person?” He asked quietly, worrying his lip between his teeth as he waited for his response.

“Absolutely not.” Peter assured him. The idea was so absurd that it was almost laughable. 

Juno looked away from him, fixing his eye on the wall across from him instead. The sight of the eyepatch hastily thrown over his missing eye made Peter feel even worse now that he knew the second half of the story. “I cared about him.”

He sounded ashamed to even admit it, and it didn’t take a genius to know that he was talking about Ramses. It came through clearly in the way he talked about the man that Juno had truly admired him. Ramses had been the first political figure Juno had known who genuinely wanted to do good, even if he was going about it in all the wrong ways, and he had been so hopeful that this man was actually going to try and provide Hyperion with a better future. He hadn’t deserved to be betrayed like that. Nobody did, but especially not him. 

“I killed all of those people for him, he tried to kill me and everyone in Old Town, and I still cared. Fuck, he ruined my life, Nureyev! He took everything away from us and I hate him but I-” Juno broke off into a sob, no tears leaving his eye but his entire body shaking. 

Peter pulled him closer to him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders tightly. Juno just crumpled against his chest, hands fisted tightly in the fabric of Peter’s shirt. “But you still miss him.” He finished for him. 

Mick had mentioned something about Juno going through the grieving process, and the comment hadn’t left Peter’s mind for nine months. He figured once he knew who it was he could let it go, make sure Juno had his space to work through everything, but he had been wrong. Knowing that Ramses O'Flaherty was the reason Juno had looked so haunted for so long before he disappeared didn’t provide him with any sort of relief. Instead it just made him angry. The universe had been so cruel to Juno Steel for so long and he couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it less. If Peter ever encountered the force responsible for deciding what happened to the lady he couldn’t be held responsible for what he would do.

“I wish it had killed me.”Juno mumbled. The words were muffled by Peter’s chest, but to him it sounded like he’d shouted them. 

He wasn’t sure if he meant Arthur’s experiments or the THEIA or something that seemed as distant as Miasma’s torture, but it didn’t matter which one. Peter thought his heart would have broken no matter which he was referring to. 

“Oh Juno,” He sighed, pulling the lady closer and running his fingers gently through his hair. “I’m so glad it didn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the person who commented a while back that they wanted Juno to be softly held: this chapter is for you
> 
> Sorry this is a bit shorter than usual, but I've been really busy this week and the next update is a big one so I figured I'd give you this small bit of angst between major plot events. What are we thinking this time folks? Does Juno still love Peter? Does he need to go see a therapist? Is he a bad person? Let me know your answers. 
> 
> Here's a question just cause I'm curious: what has been your favourite line or quote or whatever from this so far? Don't feel obligated to find one, I'm just curious if you have one :) 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors you find so that I can fix them :)

“What’s bothering you, love?” Kai asked gently, pulling Juno’s attention away from the tie he was shakily trying to get done up.

He watched in the mirror as she stepped up behind him, her hands coming to rest on his biceps as she studied his reflection. Her chin hovered just above his shoulders, which was an odd feeling when he was so used to her being so much taller. She must not have put her heels on yet, he decided, and a quick glance downward confirmed his suspicions that he was the only one in stilettos so far. 

“Just thinking.” He said simply, letting her use her grip on his arms to spin him around so she could pull at his tie. 

“About?” He’d expected her to do the tie up for him, but instead she slipped it off his neck entirely and tossed it absentmindedly into the closet. It wasn’t something he was going to question.

“Last time I wore a suit I was Dahlia Rose,” He said, and he knew he didn’t have to explain what that meant to her. It was nice, in a way, to bring things up without having to give context and explain who he was talking about. It felt easier, he thought. “Nureyev bought me one just for that stupid heist. God, I looked awful.”

Kai glanced at him and smiled. “I’m sure you looked gorgeous. From what you told me about Peter Nureyev it sounds like he had a pretty good sense of fashion.”

It felt incredibly strange to hear Nureyev’s name come out of someone else’s mouth. The sound was foreign and wrong on her tongue and it made his stomach turn anxiously. His name was a secret and there was a reason for it, and as much as he loved and trusted Kai he couldn’t help the spike of fear at the thought that somebody else knew, could use it against him. Peter Nureyev was dead, he reminded himself, there was no way for his name to hurt him now. That knowledge didn’t ease the sick feeling squirming in his gut though. 

“I hate that you know his name,” Juno said suddenly, and he wanted to take it back the moment it left his mouth. “I’m sorry, that’s stupid, it’s just-”

“You liked being the only person who knew.” Kai finished for him, pausing whatever she was doing and resting her hands on his chest. She didn’t mention that he was scared, but he knew she was aware of that too. These days it felt like she knew him better than he did.

He sighed and hung his head. “Yeah.” 

“I get it, Juno,” She said softly, using her finger to lift his chin and make him look at her again. “And if we could help it never would have known. But I’m not gonna tell anyone, I promise. I never met him but I know it was important to him that nobody knew, and I promise I’ll respect that.”

“I know. I trust you.” Juno said simply, and as ridiculous as it sounded it felt like the most truthful thing he’d ever said. 

She smiled gently and fiddled with the top couple buttons of his for a second before turning him around again, leaving her hands lightly on his shoulders as he looked himself over in the mirror. He looked almost exactly the same as before, the only difference the lack of a tie and a couple of undone buttons and his jacket smoothed out slightly more than he’d had it, but for some reason it felt like he was staring at an entirely different lady. Rita had always told him that opening up would make him feel like a new person, and he always brushed her off when she did, but he thought he was starting to get it now. Realistically he knew it was impossible, but if he squinted hard enough he was sure he could almost see where the weight of bearing all his problems alone was no longer pressing so fully into his shoulders. 

“What do you think?” Kai asked, catching his reflections eye and raising an eyebrow in question.

“I think Rita would have loved it,” He said, not really thinking through the words before they left his mouth, but he didn’t regret them once they had, which was new for him. He found he was quite fond of the feeling. “She always said red was my colour.” 

She grinned brightly at him. “She was right, you look stunning.” 

“I think you two would have liked each other.” He told her, letting her spin him around again and untangle the string of his eyepatch, fixing the hair around it where it was making it messy. Kai fiddled with things when she was nervous, and he knew she had every right to be, so he didn’t stop her. 

“Maybe I would have fallen in love with your secretary instead of you.” She laughed, and Juno watched as her ring caught the light as if prompted by her words. 

He laughed a little in response. “Probably. She’s the most loveable person I know. Or, knew, I guess.”

Juno’s voice broke a little bit at the end, and Kai smiled sympathetically at him, sliding her hand down to cup the side of his face gently. Talking about Rita hurt more than he was willing to admit. She’d been the most important and constant person in his life for so long that it almost felt absurd not to have her around, the idea of talking about her like she was dead never something he had considered before. His heart felt like it was going to crack in half with every word he said about her, about any of the crew members, no matter what they were, and every memory that popped up unannounced was almost enough to bring him to his knees every time. Kai knew all of that, of course she did, and she was always there to support him when he needed it. He loved her for that, he truly did, but it felt like the piece of him that had been ripped away from him with almost every person left in the universe that he cared about was never going to find a way to stitch itself back together. 

Juno had lost a lot of people in his life, that was a fact, and he was no stranger to grief. The thing about grieving, however, was that it never got easier, no matter how long it had been or now many times he had to go through it. There were still days where he felt paralyzed with emotion at the thought of his brother or his mom, and the two of them had died so long ago that he couldn’t remember exact details about it anymore. He couldn’t give the exact time of day anymore, couldn’t tell anyone what temperature the house had been when he’d found Ben’s body, but even so it still stung. Sometimes, for just a brief second his mind would trick him into thinking they weren’t dead after all, and when he came back to himself and realized that he’d been so wrong in thinking that it felt like every wound that was starting to heal had been sliced open again. It was the same when he thought about Rita. Or Nureyev, or Buddy, or Jet, or even Vespa. It was all too new, too fresh, and he didn’t think he’d ever fully be able to get over it. He didn’t know if he wanted to.

“You’re gonna get through this, Juno, I promise.” Kai said, her words so perfectly timed it was almost as if she read his mind. 

He smiled stiffly at her and he knew just from her expression that she saw through it entirely. “Still sucks though.”

“I know love.” She sighed, leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. 

Juno closed his eye tightly and inhaled, focusing on the feeling of her lips on his skin and her thumb stroking his cheekbone and letting it drown him in some strange imitation of peace, if only for a moment. Kai pulled away from him sooner than he would have liked, but he held his tongue and didn’t protest. Accepting physical comfort and affection was one thing, one that he was trying to get better at, but actively seeking it out was something else entirely, and he didn’t think he was quite ready for it yet. She smiled softly at him when he opened his eye, tapping her thumb against his cheek a couple of times before he moved her hand as well, and the air of the room felt shockingly cold against his skin. 

“Juno?”

Kai didn’t say anything else before she moved away from him fully, but she didn’t have to. The look on her face wasn’t one of pity, it never was with her. Instead it was one of understanding, and the air of it followed her as she moved through the room and around the corner, her presence sticking with him in a comforting sort of way even once she was out of his line of sight. Juno sighed and turned back to the mirror, pulling on the lapels of his jacket a couple of times and securing the strap on the holster of his blaster once again just for something to do with his hands. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at his own face. It felt wrong, somehow. He’d never been very good at placing those types of feelings. 

“Juno!” 

He blinked, and suddenly he wasn’t looking at the same reflection anymore. There was no suit jacket, no glaring hotel room lights, and Peter Nureyev was standing behind him with a look of concern on his face that seemed so out of place that it was almost laughable. He was staring at Juno like he’d never seen him before, though he couldn’t really blame him for that. He’d probably do the same if he was in his position. 

"Nureyev." He breathed. It sounded distant, like he was listening to himself through a wall as his brain came back to him. 

“Are you alright?” Nureyev asked, his eyes meeting Juno’s in the mirror, and he knew with that look that he’d never be able to lie to this man, even if he wanted to. 

“I was just remembering something,” Juno said, pulling his eye away from Nureyev’s reflection and focusing in on his own instead, smoothing his hands down the front of his dress even though he had no need to. “It happens sometimes, if I’m in a similar situation or something, I don’t know.” 

Rita had once described it as PTSD, and at the time he might have been inclined to believe her, though he was much too proud to admit that to anyone. Now though, now he wasn’t so sure that’s what it was. He didn’t just remember bad things, after all. Sure, it was mostly bad things, but part of that could be chalked up to the fact that he had a lot more bad things to remember and turture himself with than the average person did. Sometimes it was good things, though, or completely neutral things. It wasn’t just regular memories, he was aware enough to know that, but he had absolutely no idea what else he could call it. He wasn’t sure it mattered much anyway. 

“You look nice. Buddy did a good job with that.” He said, turning around to face him fully. 

If Nureyev minded the sudden change of subject he didn’t mention it, and Juno was incredibly grateful for that. He hadn’t been lying, either, he did look really good. The suit Buddy had picked out for him was the perfect shade of blue for his skin tone and fit him like a second skin, no part of it even a hair out of place. It was just the type of suit Rex Glass would wear, he knew that for a fact. That was the alias he’d known the best, after all. 

“I could say the same thing about you,” Nureyev said, his eyes tracing over Juno’s form a couple of times in a way that made him a little uncomfortable. “That dress looks stunning on you.” 

Stunning wasn’t a word Juno would have ever used to describe himself, and if he was being honest the dress was far too short for him to feel fully comfortable, but he was thankful for the compliment anyway. He shot Nureyev a smile that was as close to real as he seemed able to get these days. “Thanks. Mind helping me with this?” 

He held out a necklace towards him, letting the chain hang off one finger, and Nureyev seemed to understand what he was asking almost instantly. It only took him a couple steps to close the distance between the two of them, and he took the chain gently before nudging Juno’s shoulder. He took the hint and turned around, using all his strength to suppress a shiver when his fingers brushed the back of his neck. Nureyev always had cold hands, that was something he’d noticed pretty early on, and he did his best to convince himself that that’s all that caused the shock down his spine. It took longer than strictly necessary for him to loop the chain around his throat and fasten the clasp in the back, but Juno found that he didn't quite mind. 

"I'd say that completes the ensemble, wouldn't you?" Nureyev hummed, dropping his hands to Juno's shoulders and looking up to catch his eye in the mirror. Juno froze. 

It felt like he was seeing a ghost, the reflection looking back at him hovering somewhere between Peter Nureyev and Kai Lazarus and sending a shiver down his spine for an entirely different reason than before. His breath caught for a moment as his brain desperately tried to make sense of the image, and between one blink and the next it was just Nureyev. He was watching him with an expression of carefully masked concern that he wouldn't have been able to see through had he not been on the receiving end of that look so many times before. He was waiting for him to say something, he realized, for him to either address the problem or dismiss it, and as much as he knew he probably should Juno couldn't force the words out of his chest. 

"Thanks, Nureyev. Looks great." He said, the words quick and dismissive. He was sure he was just imagining the look of pity that crossed Nureyev's face. He wanted to be sure. 

"Well, shall we?" Nureyev asked, holding his arm out towards Juno. 

He smiled a bit and grabbed onto his elbow, letting him lead him out of the room and out into the hall. The ship was silent around them, the only sounds their footsteps and the occasional groan of metal. They didn't talk, but they didn't have to. Silences were getting easier for Juno to deal with. He didn't feel as compelled to fill them with mindless conversation as he once had, so he didn't. Nureyev could start a conversation if he wanted to, but if not he was fine to walk in silence. It didn't seem like Nureyev was as alright with that silence, though, which was odd for him, but Juno didn't think it was his place to comment on it. 

"Remind me why I'm Rex Glass again?" Nureyev asked. 

"Because there are people who can verify that I knew Rex Glass," Juno said simply, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He tried to, anyway, but he was standing on his blind side and it was virtually impossible for Juno to make out any details of him. "Sasha and Mick both can, and more important so can the Kanagawas." 

Nureyev nodded in understanding. "So it's the best cover story we have."

"We could have had a better one if Buddy had given us more time." Juno huffed, and Nureyev let out a soft laugh. 

"Was three days not enough for you?" He teased, and Juno fought to keep down a blush.

Three days wasn't, in fact, enough for him, but it was also far too long. Every additional second they spent doing anything but trying to figure this out was another second of memory Juno lost to something he had no idea the cause of. Vespa had run more scans of his system than he was strictly comfortable with in some sort of attempt to locate a problem, but she couldn't find anything. As far as they were concerned everything was perfectly okay with him, which only made the situation more concerning. 

"Nice of you two to finally join us." Buddy said, and Juno looked up sharply. He hadn't realized they'd even made it to the kitchen, but there they were. It was disorienting, to say the least. 

"You look so pretty Mista Steel!" Rita squealed, and he shot her a smile. 

Kai was leaning over her shoulder reading something on her comms, and Juno was struck with the unanticipated thought that the two of them looked good together. He'd been right in thinking that they'd get along, and it was clear that the both of them had some sort of liking of the other. Rita was more vocal about hers, but he knew it was present in Kai too. He knew what her real smile looked like, and it was always present around Rita. It was nice to see two of his favourite people getting along so well. 

"God, learn to put on a damn eyepatch." Kai laughed, straightening up and moving across the room over to Juno. Nureyev pulled away from him and moved over to Jet, and he couldn't help the small spark of disappointment. 

"I'll have you know I've been wearing this stupid thing for two years." Juno huffed, but he didn't stop her when she started tugging on the strap to untangle it. 

"And yet you still can't put it on without looking like a mess." She sighed. 

Juno flicked her nose in retaliation, which felt strange but comforting at the same time. It took him a moment longer than he would have liked to realize it was something he used to do with Benzaiten. "Maybe that was the point." 

"If you two are done flirting," Vespa said, her voice louder than it needed to be to get their attention. "We should probably talk before we do this."

Juno didn’t miss the way Nureyev looked at him with that comment, but he had no idea what it meant. He’d been giving him that look a lot lately, especially around Kai, and if he didn’t know better he’d say it was jealousy. He did know better though, and he knew that Peter Nureyev didn’t get jealous, especially not over Juno Steel and his fake wife. Juno studied him curiously for a moment as Kai finished sorting out his eyepatch before sitting down at the table, not at all phased when Kai ploped herself down on the arm of his chair. She liked close contact, that’s something he’d figured out incredibly quickly, and while he wasn’t the biggest fan of it he wasn’t going to deny her the ability to be as comfortable in a new situation as she could. He knew she was nervous about being on the Carte Blanche, even if she was doing her best not to show it. 

“We’ve been over the plan plenty of times already.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest and shooting a pointed look at Vespa.

She ignored him. “We have no control over what happens in there, so you three need to be alert, you understand me?” 

“Vespa,” Kai said gently, leaning forward a bit, and Vespa tensed almost immediately. “I’ve lived with these people my entire life. I know how to work around them.”

“But Juno and Peter do not.” Jet pointed out. 

Kai sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. “I know you don’t trust me, and you have no reason to, but I promise I’m not going to let anything happen to them. You have my word.” 

She sounded so sincere in her declaration that Juno felt it was impossible not to believe her, and Buddy seemed to be in agreement, though she also seemed rather disappointed with that fact. 

“These two are my family,” She said, her voice stern yet soft at the same time in a way that shouldn’t have been possible but happened anyway. “And if anything happens to them I won’t hesitate to kill you, darling.” 

“I won't let them harm a hair on their pretty little heads.” Kai smiled at Buddy, and for a fleeting moment she smiled back before her face returned to one of neutrality. It was small, hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking for it, but it was there, and Juno appreciated it in a way he couldn’t quite articulate. 

“You’re so cool, Miss Lazarus! Mista Steel got real lucky finding you!” Rita sighed, staring fondly at the two of them. 

Juno didn’t even try to suppress his eye roll, though there was no real annoyance in it. “Thanks Rita, but we really should be going now.” 

Buddy stood up from the head of the table instantly and fixed them all with a level look. “Are you all armed?”

Juno gestured vaguely to the very obvious blaster strapped to his thigh as he stood up, and Buddy sighed in mock annoyance. Kai moved the side of her blazer out of the way and let show the collection of knives on her belt. It was a rather impressive collection, Juno would admit, but he knew she had more tucked away in her room where no one would find them and accuse her of plotting against them, both on the Carte Blanche and at home. She’d shown him all her hiding spots and updated him every time they moved. Just in case, she always said, but he knew it was more for his benefit than hers. He was thankful to be trusted with it either way. 

“Might I ask why I’m unarmed?” Nureyev piped up. 

“Because the Lazarus’s don’t trust you.” Juno said simply. 

“And besides,” Kai said, fixing him with a bright grin that Juno clearly knew the intentions behind. “Rex Glass doesn’t carry weapons, remember?” 

Nureyev looked taken aback by the statement. “How did you-” 

“Juno told me. Everything he knows about you, I know. Now come along boys, we can’t keep my family waiting.” And with that Kai was sweeping out of the room in her usual dramatic fashion, leaving Juno and Nureyev to trail behind her as they made their way over to the hotel. 

Buddy had parked the Carte Blanche in a spot that she swore no one would ever find, and it happened to be a relatively short walk from the Earl Carver, which Juno was rather grateful for because long walks in stilettos were never ideal. Nureyev was silent at his side as they walked, but he didn’t need to say anything for Juno to know that something was bothering him. Tension was radiating off of him in waves, and that didn’t happen, not to Peter Nureyev. More importantly, however, was the fact that it didn’t happen to Rex Glass, and that’s who Nureyev was at the moment. He’d never let a mask slip like this before, and it was concerning, to say the least. Juno didn’t think it was any of his business, and it honestly really wasn’t, but if it was going to get in the way of the job then he needed to get some sense knocked into him. 

“Something bothering you?” He asked lightly, trying not to sound too serious or too unconcerned. He didn’t want Nureyev thinking he was annoyed with him, but he also didn’t want him brushing this, and him, off. He had a tendency to do that, and it was starting to get on Juno’s nerves. 

“Everything, Juno?” Nureyev said sharply, throwing a pointed glare at him out of the corner of his eye. “She knows everything you know about me?” 

It took a moment for what Nureyev was implying to really click, but once it did and he realized what he was asking he felt the urge to slap him. “Not that. Never that.”

“Don’t lie to me, Juno.” He said.

“I’m not!” Juno insisted, throwing up his hands in defense, and he felt horrible because he knew that he was doing exactly that. “I’m not that big of an asshole.”

Nureyev’s eyes softened just a fraction behind his glasses, and it was clear that he believed him. It made Juno’s stomach twist uncomfortably. “I don’t think I’d describe you as an asshole, detective.” 

Juno huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, well I’m sure Peter Lazarus wouldn’t agree with you there.” 

“So you two aren’t on the best of terms then, I take it?” Nureyev asked, raising an eyebrow in question. 

Juno didn’t know if he’d always been this inquisitive and he’d never noticed or if this was a new thing for him, but it felt strange to be talking so casually to him. They’d never really done that before, the two of them. Not when Miasma happened and certainly not afterwards, and even after they’d started to patch things up they’d never really taken the opportunity to just talk. Everything was always high stakes between them, life or death situations and overwhelming emotions and a passion he hadn’t felt in a long, long time before he met Nureyev. As silly as it sounded, Juno couldn’t even list off mundane facts about the man. He didn’t know anything simple about him, like his favourite colour or his exact height or if he actually needed his glasses. Instead he knew the deepest parts of him, the secrets he’d been hiding away. He knew about Mag and the guardian angel program, knew what his screams sounded like when he was too tired to hold them back anymore. More importantly, though, he knew his name, which was a gift that had only ever been given to him. He felt selfish now for accepting it, even when it was so readily given. 

The Earl Carver loomed ahead of them, and Juno felt his heart drop in his chest, just a little. He couldn’t think of a place he wanted to be less right now, but he knew he needed to do this. This was a case he couldn’t leave to anyone else, and they didn’t have time to waste for him to get better, for the nightmares and the stinging in his hand to go away. He didn’t have time, no matter how desperately he wanted it. That was strange for him as well, he realized, wanting more time. For so much of his life Juno had been ready to throw everything away at the drop of a hat, plans of going out in a blaze of glory because at least that would be less pathetic than throwing himself off the top of an office building, even if that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to do that anymore, and he didn’t know who or what he had to thank for it or if it was even something he was thankful for, but it was a fact, and he accepted that. 

“You two ready?” Kai asked, that familiar glint of mischief in her eyes.

Juno didn’t think he had ever been less ready for anything in his life, but he nodded anyway, and the doors swung open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Juno chapter, hell yeah kids. I love writing from his perspective so much and I feel like his thoughts are so interesting to explore, especially in this fic. What do you think is going on? Are you starting to put anything together, or is this all just getting more and more confusing for you? What do you think Juno means about running out of time? Why does Kai know Nureyev's name? I would LOVE to hear your theories for this chapter, so please leave them down below if you have any. 
> 
> Just as a little treat this week, here's a couple playlists I made of songs that remind me of Juno and Nureyev because I love them and I listen to a lot of music while I write so I've cultivated quite the collection  
> Nureyev's playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6S7sUVsOYkBK8qf8xjsrqs?si=1ahUxkgFR5WpW6al6w19KQ  
> Juno's playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4N0oDJTCY3Wgi73O4JZeaG?si=vANfXjULTm6qiAYG-sh-5A
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them :)

The public entrance of the Earl Carver bar was much grander than the staff entrance Peter had used before. The entire room seemed to be flooded with light and colour, though not in a way that made it look unorganized or messy. It was a very calculated type of chaos that made the collar of his shirt feel too tight around his throat. He didn’t fit in in a place like this and he knew this. This crowd of people in their fancy dresses and suits weren’t his type of people. Sure, he’d pretended to be like them on heists before, taking on the persona of a rich man with more money than he knew what to do with and a lot of free time on his hands, but this was different. Everyone in this room was dangerous, cutting sharp figures with clearly placed weapons. There wasn’t a doubt in Peter’s mind that everyone here was rich and armed and more than willing to kill him at the first sign of suspicion. He was out of place here, that much was clear to him, but Juno, Juno looked more at home than Peter had ever seen him before. 

A room full of beautiful people was exactly the place Juno Steel looked like he needed to be, and there was no hiding the ease with which he moved throughout the groups of them, keeping a close eye on Peter and the room at the same time. He blended in, the blaster on his thigh and the low cut of his dress like a second skin with how easy he seemed to move in them. There didn’t seem to be a fraction of anxiety present in the lady, and it was clear to Peter now that this is exactly how he’d been spending the last however many months. Weaving his way through people equally as stunning as him without a care in the world. He seemed at home, in a strange way, and it was more than Peter had ever seen from him on the Carte Blanche. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. 

“I’m gonna go look for Peter,” Kai said, swiping a drink off the tray of a passing waiter and turning to look at the two of them. “You two keep your eyes open. Talk to him if you see him, call me if anything suspicious happens.”

Juno nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.” She warned, pointing an accusatory finger in Juno’s direction before sweeping off into the crowd. 

Peter stayed close to Juno, surveying the room as casually as possible, and it felt so familiar yet so foreign that he didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d stood in many an expensive room with Juno Steel, and whether it be for card games or private auctions he always knew he had the upper hand. This time though, this time he knew absolutely nothing. Anyone in this room could be their target and he’d never know. There was nothing to steal but information, and no one to count on except a woman he had absolutely no trust in. He couldn’t push back the anxiety that welled up in his chest as the thought of all that could go wrong. 

“Don’t drink anything that anyone offers you,” Juno told him. Peter only seemed to half hear him, but he nodded anyway, and he saw Juno cast him a concerned glance out of the corner of his eye. “Are you gonna be okay?”

He nodded again. “Just a bit nervous, is all.” 

“You, nervous?” Juno scoffed, and the sound of it helped bleed a little bit of the tension out of Peter’s shoulders. 

“Believe it or not it does happen,” He said, turning to look at him more fully. “I’m just exceptionally good at hiding it.” 

He laughed a little bit and shook his head. “You’ve got no reason to be nervous. I know what I’m doing.”

“Oh, you do?” Peter asked, raising an eyebrow in feigned curiosity. 

“I was a detective for fifteen years asshole,” Juno said, punching him in the shoulder lightly. “Gathering information is kinda my strong suit.”

And a strong suit it was. Peter would never say it out loud, but he rather admired the lady’s ability to analyze a situation more completely than should be possible. He always seemed to find the small details other people never would, taking everything he knew and rearranging it until it all made sense. He found every connection, filled in every gap, and when he didn’t know something he needed he kept looking, finding the information even if it killed him. There was a determined spark in the detective that Peter rarely saw but loved oh so much. Of course he’d never tell him any of that, both out of embarrassment at the magnitude of his admiration for the lady and to preserve the small bit of humbleness he had when it came to his detective skills. 

"Are you sure I don't need to bet your life in a card game to get you to think?" Peter teased, and Juno grinned brightly at him, a genuine laugh bubbling out of his throat like he hadn't meant for it to but it decided to anyway. 

"I'll let you know if that's necessary." Juno said, and Peter couldn't stop himself from smiling back at him.

The silences between the two of them seemed to come easier after that. Peter wasn't nearly as nervous as he had been before, and Juno was certainly trying his best to make sure it stayed that way. He told him about the people they passed as they weaved through the room and laughed when Peter made snide comments about their outfits. He shot him a glance when he swiped the ring off a man's finger out of habit, but he didn't say anything, and they both knew the man wouldn't notice. He had far too many on his hand to pay attention to the smallest. So far there had been no sight of Peter Lazarus, but they stopped to talk to a couple other people as they wandered the room. They were careful to avoid anyone who could recognize Peter as a waiter from a few days prior, but Juno insisted there was no real reason to worry.

"The Lazarus's think they're too important to remember the staff." He explained, and he sounded so sure that it softened some of the unease Peter had been feeling about the possibility of being spotted. 

It had been around an hour when Juno stopped in his tracks, grabbing Peter by the arm and gesturing over to a roulette table. There was a group of young men sitting there with their partners at their sides, all of whom looked rather bored of being arm candy but stuck around anyway. Every man at the table had someone at his side, except for one. Peter knew who it was instantly despite never having seen him before. 

"Is that Peter Lazarus?" He asked, leaning closer to Juno to avoid being overheard. 

Juno nodded and started towards the table. "Yeah." 

"I guess it's showtime." Peter mumbled, and Juno didn't say anything else 

He made his way over to the table in a way that seemed far too natural given their present circumstances, Peter trailing behind and assuming the role of Rex Glass to the best of his ability. It had been a while since he'd had to slip into this mask, and wearing it again felt slightly unnatural. He didn't like to repeat aliases if he could avoid it, the idea of someone recognizing him or the name making him uneasy, but that's exactly what they wanted from this. They wanted people to know who Rex Glass was and why he was at Juno's side. His comfort wasn't necessary. 

Juno reached the table quickly and slid into place beside Peter Lazarus like he was made to be there, leaning over to whisper something to him. He smiled bright at Juno. 

"All in on black." He said, and Juno smiled confidently at his side. 

Peter had never understood roulette, so he wasn't quite sure what was happening, but before he knew it the ball landed on a black space and the table was all either celebrating or groaning about their losses. Peter Lazarus stood up triumphantly, scooping Juno up into a hug and spinning him a bit. Juno laughed and clutched onto his shoulders before he was set down. The twitch of discomfort that came over his features seemed to go unnoticed by the occupants of the table, but Peter saw it, and he held himself back from stepping in to save him from a situation he clearly didn’t want to be in. 

“I knew all I needed was my good luck charm!” He laughed, slinging his arm around Juno’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Peter watched him warily. 

“How the hell do you do that?” One of the other players' partners demanded. 

“A lady never reveals his secrets,” Juno grinned at her before turning back to Peter Lazarus. “By the way, I have someone I want you to meet.” 

He raised an eyebrow and Peter took that as his cue, stepping up beside Juno and putting on the most Rex Glass smile he could. Peter Lazarus studied him like he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. 

“Who’s this?” He asked Juno, a hint of curiosity in his voice. 

“Rex Glass,” Peter introduced himself, holding out a hand for the man to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Peter Lazarus took his hand and smiled, though it was clear there was some suspicion behind it. “The pleasure is all mine. I take it you’re a friend of Juno’s?”

“We met on Mars a couple years ago. He was helping me with the mask case.” Juno explained. 

“You mean the important Martian artifact that you lost?” A lady on the other side of the table piped up, and Juno turned to glare at her. 

“For your information I didn’t lose it, it was stolen. By this asshole.” He gestured at Peter, and he gave a small bow when the occupants of the table turned to look at him. 

Peter wasn’t quite sure why Juno was telling them that or why they already knew about the details from the Grims Mask case, but he wasn’t going to question. He knew a lot more about the Lazarus family than Peter did, and if he thought it was a good idea for them to know then it probably was. Trusting Juno was the only thing he was positive he could do right now, even if the detective was making it rather difficult. 

"So you're a thief?" Peter Lazarus asked, his eyes lighting up a bit as he studied him. 

He smiled at him. "I dabble."

“You brought a thief with you? Are you joking?” One of the other men at the table asked. He sounded a lot less impressed than Peter Lazarus had about the idea of Rex’s occupation. It wasn’t even technically what Rex Glass did. He was an agent for dark matters, but Juno had made him a thief, so now he supposed that who he was. Realistically Rex Glass was a thief because he was the exact same person as Peter Nureyev, who was undoubtedly a thief, and a rather good one at that. He liked to keep his aliases separate from who he actually was though, and Juno was blurring that line where it didn’t need to be blurred without his permission. 

“Please, half the people here are thieves,” Juno scoffed. “I’m just introducing a good friend to my family.” 

Peter Lazarus groaned and everyone else at the table laughed, including Juno. Peter assumed it was supposed to be funny, so he forced a chuckle out of his own throat as well, though he had no idea what he was supposed to be laughing at. “God, you sound more and more like my sister every day.”

“Speaking of my lovely wife, I need to talk to you about something.” Juno said. 

“About my sister?” He asked, raising an eyebrow, and Juno nodded. 

“Let me buy you a drink and we can chat?” Juno suggested. 

Peter Lazarus laughed and clapped a hand down on Juno’s shoulder. “Well how can a man turn down an offer like that?” 

Very easily, Peter thought, but he held his tongue and followed along behind them as they moved over to the bar. Peter Lazarus kept his hand on Juno’s shoulder while they walked and Peter had to fight down the urge to get between the two of them. It was clear to him that Juno was uncomfortable with the contact, but he wasn’t saying anything. Telling people you wanted information from not to touch you wasn’t the smartest idea, especially if you expected to walk out with said information, so Peter didn’t say anything either. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to, though. 

“Did you ever look into that lead I gave you?” Peter Lazarus asked casually, clearly attempting to make small talk without revealing something Rex Glass couldn’t know about. 

Juno didn’t seem to understand what he was asking. “What lead?”

“You forgot,” He smiled sadly and tightened his grip on his shoulder for a moment. “I’m sorry, I should have expected as much.” 

“It’s alright.” Juno said stiffly. Discomfort was radiating off his body in waves and Peter wanted nothing more than to punch Peter Lazarus in his stupid face. 

“I’ll tell you more about it later.” He said, shooting a very pointed look at Peter over his shoulder. He really, really wanted to punch him. 

A woman at the other end of the bar gave them a strange look as they walked up. She wasn’t someone that Peter recognized, but she looked like she’d seen a ghost and studied them intently. Neither Juno or Peter Lazarus seemed to notice her, too wrapped up in a conversation he wasn’t paying any attention to, but he noticed, and the woman seemed to notice him as well. She glanced between him and Juno a couple of times, the wheels in her hear clearly turning, and Peter couldn’t help the brief fear that she’d seen them before on a heist. This was the worst possible time for their cover to be blown. His heart beat a little bit faster as he held eye contact with her, and every time her gaze would shift to Juno for a moment he felt his anxiety give a violent spike. It seemed to be something she was doing without thinking about it, like she couldn’t help but be drawn towards him. That wasn’t something he could entirely blame her for, Juno was a rather stunning lady after all, and he frequently found himself studying him unconsciously himself, but that didn’t mean he liked the way she was looking at him. 

There was a familiarity in her eyes that was unmistakable, and against his better judgement Peter couldn’t help but let it get to him, just a little. He knew Juno was a rather popular lady who had friends and enemies spread out across the galaxy, that was an undeniable fact, but he still felt his hand twitch anxiously at his side at the idea of her recognizing him. Why was someone who knew Juno here? She wasn’t a Lazarus, that much was clear. The family were constantly mingling with each other, but to everyone present she seemed to be invisible, going completely unnoticed in a way that wouldn’t have happened if she were related to them. It was almost as though Peter were the only person in the room who could see her, and it was a terrifying and uncomfortable thought.

“Rex?” Juno said, and his voice snapped him out of the spiral of thoughts he’d fallen into. 

He turned to face the two of them and found that they’d been joined by Kai, who had managed to approach them and the bar without him noticing. He didn’t know how long he’d been holding a pseudo staring contest with the woman on the other end of the bar for, but it was clearly longer than it had seemed if the looks on the others faces were anything to go by.

“My apologies Juno,” He said, laughing lightly in a way that he reserved for Rex Glass. “I must have spaced out, you know how I get.” 

Juno didn’t, in fact, know how he got, because Peter Nureyev wasn’t the type of person who spaced out on the regular. Rex Glass wasn’t either, for that matter, but they could pretend he was, and it seemed as though that’s what they were going to have to do. 

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Juno shrugged, clearly playing it off, but Peter caught the concern in his eye despite how hard he tried to hide it. 

“I was just telling these two that it’s rather rude for a gentleman to be sitting out while there’s ladies without dance partners,” Kai said, shooting him a grin that he couldn’t decipher for the life of him. “Wouldn’t you agree Mr Glass?”

Peter wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that, and he looked over at Juno for help. He played it up a little more than he would have otherwise, but he really was confused. Peter Lazarus laughed and leaned around Juno, whispering in his ear at a volume that he was sure the others could all hear. 

“She’s asking you to dance with her.” He said, the act of whispering clearly just for show.

“Ah, I see.” Peter whispered back just as loudly, playing along with whatever it was they were doing. 

The context didn’t help to ease his confusion though, and he took a moment to rack his brain for where dancing was mentioned in the plan. That was assuming that they ever really had a plan that went further than pretending to be Rex Glass again and hoping they found Peter Lazarus somewhere in the hotel. A lack of planning for things like this made him more nervous than was strictly acceptable, so he was trying to convince himself that what they had was a plan, even if it clearly wasn’t one. 

“Wouldn’t you prefer to dance with your wife?” Peter mused. 

Kai sighed and rolled her eyes fondly. It was strange for an action she directed towards him to be fond. “My wife is otherwise occupied, so it looks like you’re stuck with me. Come on.”

She grabbed his hand and whisked him away before he even had a chance to protest, and he found himself being dragged towards an area of the room where many a couple danced together. He chanced a glance back down to the other end of the bar as they moved, and he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut when he noticed that the woman from before was no longer there. Kai didn’t give him any time to think about that feeling as she shoved him lightly into the crowd and used her grip on his hand to spin him around, winding her arms around his neck between one blink and the next. He caught her around the waist in a way he could only hope looked natural to anyone who may be watching them and took the lead, guiding her around the floor while sparing glances back at Juno and Peter Lazarus. 

“Was there a reason for this?” He asked, leaning closer to her ear and keeping his voice low to avoid being overheard. 

Kai took his hand and spun him with a practiced ease, taking back the lead easily and guiding him to the other side of the floor. “Peter wasn’t gonna tell Juno anything with you standing there. I’m improvising.” 

“Most of this plan seems to be based on improvisation.” He huffed, pulling her a bit closer to avoid a trio that were stumbling off the floor. 

“Isn’t that half the fun though?” She asked, a mischievous smile on her face. 

Peter couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at that, letting her spin him away and then pull him back in again. “Maybe if it doesn’t involve dancing.”

“I seem to remember a heist that involved quite a lot of dancing. Stealing a map, right?” She raised an eyebrow. Peter stumbled a bit at that, his feet forgetting to move as he tried to process what he’d just been told. “What’s the matter Peter? Having trouble dancing in those shoes?”

She kept her voice low and her mouth so close to his ear that he could feel her breath against it, but hearing his real name come out of her mouth in such a crowded space while he was operating under a different alias sent shivers down the back of his neck. He was also rather offended at the insinuation that he couldn’t dance just as well in heels as he could in any other footwear and took back the lead in retaliation, spinning her a couple of times before pulling her back. 

“How did you-” He stopped himself once his brain made the connection. 

“Juno.” They said it at the same time, and they met eyes for a moment before they both laughed gently, the sound of it mixing together in the air between them. 

Kai sighed lightly as the laughter faded away, dropping her forehead to rest on Peter’s shoulder. It was more intimate than he would have liked it to be, but strangely he didn’t mind as much as he thought he should have. “I know you don’t trust me and I know it’s because you care about Juno. Trust me, I get it.” 

“I wish I could trust you.” Peter said, and as strange as it seemed he found he meant it. 

He did genuinely want to trust Kai, if only because Juno seemed to trust her so completely, but trust had never been something that came easily to him. He’d been burned too many times to have faith in anyone or their intentions as readily as he used to. Of course, like all rules he’d started to apply to himself and think of as fact, Juno had broken through that. From the first moment he saw him trying to climb out of his office window Peter’s heart belonged to the detective, and no matter how hard he fought for it he couldn’t get it back. The grip his lady had on him was iron tight and unrelenting, and even after he’d left him and shattered the trust he’d had in him he accepted that he'd never be the owner of his own heart again. When he saw Juno step onto the Carte Blanche for the first time after a very, very long year without him he decided he didn’t want to be. 

It was clear that Kai was important to Juno. He didn’t know the full extent of what the two of them had been through in the time they’d known each other, but he knew better than anyone that trauma bonded you to a person better than anything else, and the thread connecting the two of them was one clearly forged from the worst that their lives had had to offer. It was their business and theirs alone, the decision to share the weight with someone else only theirs to make, and Peter knew that, he really did, but he couldn’t help but wish that he knew. He wanted to understand what it was about her that made Juno trust her so completely, what compelled him to bear the most vulnerable parts of himself to a woman whose family had caused him so much pain without an ounce of suspicion of her intentions. Perhaps one day he’d get to see that side of Kai as well, but for now he would stay suspicious. His trust was hard to earn and she hadn’t yet, even if his heart ached with the want to give it to her. 

“I also have something for you.” Kai said suddenly, straightening up once again and looking him in the eye. 

Peter raised an eyebrow at her. “You do?”

She took back the lead easily and spun him a couple of times, her right hand landing on his chest instead of his shoulder when she pulled him back in. Between one breath and the next a thin sheet of plastic was slipped into the breast pocket of his blazer and her hand was back on his shoulder with a practiced ease that was so casual he was sure he would have missed it had she not given him any reason to pay attention beforehand. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was stupid to pull it out and check, so he simply raised his eyebrow in question again in hopes of prompting her to explain. She seemed to get it rather easily. 

“It’s a key card.” She said, guiding him back over to the other side of the floor. 

“For?” He asked. 

“The basement, Arthur’s office. He isn’t here tonight, some emergency with his wife, so it’s the perfect chance for us to steal some of his notes. Juno and I both have clearance to go down there, but neither of us are particularly good thieves, and I’ve been told you have rather sticky fingers and a knack for disappearing.” She explained. There was a glint of mischief in her eyes that Peter couldn’t help but love. 

“You want me to steal his notes?” He mused, and she grinned. 

“Now you’ve got it. Meet us down there in an hour, I’ll show you where to go. It’s up to you to get out.” Her voice came through with total confidence in a way he was unable to argue with. He simply smiled at her instead. 

“You did have a plan.” He said. She laughed, which prompted him to laugh as well, and he felt a strange sort of comfort from it. 

“I may find unpredictability fun, but I’m not an idiot. Besides, I promised Buddy I’d get you two back safe, and I’d hate to break a promise.” She shrugged nonchalantly, playing it off as though it was something anyone could come up with. 

Peter was impressed, and while he’d never say it out loud he did allow himself the luxury of speaking his mind just a little. “You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.” 

“I could say the same about you, Rex.” Kai grinned, and he found himself grinning too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was A Lot now wasn't it? We got some Peter and Kai bonding, which certainly wasn't something anyone was expecting, and our first proper introduction to Peter Lazarus, among other things. What do you think is going on? Who was the woman at the bar? What are they going on find in the basement? Can they trust Peter Lazarus? I'm super curious about your theories for this one in particular so please please please tell me all of your thoughts.
> 
> Sorry that this chapter was a little late, but I got hit with a massive bought of writers black halfway through and it took me a little longer than usual to finish it. I promise the next one will be more on time. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during this trying time and I promise I'll keep posting chapters to keep you entertained during the school closures.
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them :)

Peter wasn’t sure he would have exactly called the basement a basement if he had been the one to construct the building. Maze was more like it, with a plethora of hallways and doors. He was starting to see how it resembled the vault they’d broken into that got them into this entire mess in the first place. Arthur Lazarus clearly had a style, Peter would give him that, even if that style was confusing and frankly rather ridiculous. He supposed it was probably to make it harder to find your way around if you didn’t know where you were going, and for someone who’d made a career out of being able to disappear without a second thought Peter was just as uncomfortable with that as one might expect him to be. Taking a wrong turn amidst hallways that all looked the same had been what killed Juno Steel, or so he’d spent nine months thinking, and in his experience Juno Steel was a rather hard lady to kill. He tried not to dwell on that fact too much as he made his way down the dimly lit hallways. 

The plan Kai had concocted was a rather brilliant one as far as Peter was concerned. An hour was, as it turned out, just enough time for them to get Rita into the Earl Carver security system to shut off the cameras in the basement. Kai had been right when she said she knew the security of the building like the back of her hand. She guided Rita through the system so effortlessly it was almost like they weren’t hacking into one of the most well protected buildings in the solar system, which was truly saying something. The first time they’d hacked it to get their names on the list of staff it took them a lot of cursing and the better part of three hours to do it, but this time it felt almost effortless. Peter couldn’t help but feel like it was too easy. A lot of things about the night so far had felt that way, and he was trying his best not to let it get to him. Lesson one of thieving, there was no point in worrying about something he couldn’t control. He tried to remember that as they enacted their plan. His worries weren’t going to get in the way of the heist, he wouldn’t let them. 

The first phase of the plan was simple. Kai and Juno were going to waltz right into the basement without any problem, because Kai was going to call Arthur and ask him for permission. He had favourites, she’d said, and she was one of them, so there was no reason for him to say no if she had a convincing enough excuse. It made perfect sense for Juno to be going with her as well, so security would have no reason to question his presence, meaning he could get into the basement just as easily as she could. Peter would then wait an appropriate amount of time for his sudden absence not to be suspicious to anyone who happened to be looking, sneak past security and into the basement as well, and send a message to Rita, who would disable the security cameras in the basement and give them about a twenty minute window to steal the files and get out before someone noticed the cameras were down. It was fool proof, absolutely nothing in their control able to go wrong, and Peter didn’t know why anxiety was settling into his stomach like a brick. 

Getting past security was easier than it should have been, as was the entire process of shutting down the cameras. For a place so well protected it was far too simple to plan an attack on, and that didn’t sit right with him. Kai seemed confident though, and she knew this hotel better than anyone, so he supposed that his fears were unsupported and should be ignored. That was the way he dealt with most of his emotions, after all, so why should this be any different? The thought stuck with him as he made his way through the basement no matter how much he tried to shake it out of his head. He hadn’t been given an exact meeting point, instead being instructed to just walk until he found them and a couple of turns he had to be sure to make. It was far too vague for him to be completely confident, but he didn’t falter. Peter Nureyev didn’t falter, that was something that had always been true and would stay that way as long as he had control over it. 

That basement was, for lack of a better description, creepy. It was nowhere near as nice as the upper floors of the hotel, lacking in both the expensive atmosphere and the general furnishings he’d come to expect from the Earl Carver. It seemed Arthur’s love for interior decorating and complex cement mazes didn’t exactly go hand in hand. For a while he could still hear remnants of the people in the bar above through the floor, but the further and further away from the stairwell he got the quieter the noise got until he was left with only the sound of his own footsteps for company and nothing to distract himself with besides his own thoughts. 

This was too easy. That thought would not leave his mind no matter what he tried to replace it with, and he hated to admit how much truth there was in it. Every part of this felt far too easy, from hacking into the cameras to sneaking past the guards and stealing Arthur’s notes. Peter had been on heists with far more planning where many, many more things had gone wrong and so far this paled in comparison. There was a chance that he’d just gotten lucky, but he had been around enough to know that good luck didn’t happen for people like him. He’d been down on his luck for as long as he could remember and he wasn’t naive enough to believe that it would all just change one day. Things didn’t get easier unless he made them easier, and as far as he was concerned he’d had absolutely nothing to do with shaping this plan. 

“Peter! I was beginning to think you’d bailed on us.” 

Kai grinned sharply at him as he rounded the last corner. The bright lights made her look paler than usual in a way that was almost ominous, and the black of her suit was rather striking against the otherwise grey hallway. Juno was striking as well, his arms and ankles crossed as he leaned against the wall, though Peter supposed he was rather biased. He always found Juno beautiful, and this moment was no exception.

“What reason could I possibly have for leaving?” He scoffed, adjusting the sleeve of his blazer as he joined them. It didn’t really need it, but he needed something to do with his hands, so he tugged on the sleeve a few times anyway. 

She shrugged. “I haven’t worked with you before, forgive me for being a bit skeptical.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” Peter sighed. “Though I wouldn’t exactly consider this working together. That implies that I have equal say in the entire ordeal, and that doesn’t seem to be the case here. I’d classify this more as working for you with minimal assistance.” 

Kai laughed at that, grinning brightly and turning to look at Juno. “You didn’t tell me he was so clever.” 

“Because he isn’t. He just likes to think he is.” Juno said simply. 

Peter placed a hand over his heart in mock hurt. “You wound me, detective.”

“Good, your ego needs downsizing.” He said. There was a mischievous glint in his eye that Peter had always loved to see but had been far too absent recently. Seeing it again was a lovely change. 

“Well, shall we?” Kai asked, gesturing vaguely down the hallway.

“Ladies first.” Peter said, and she shot him a grin before turning on her heel and making her way down the hall. Juno rolled his eye and grabbed Peter’s arm, dragging him along after her. He didn’t let go once he fell into step beside him and he tried not to think about it too much. 

It was hard to feel like they were moving when everything around them looked the exact same as it had twenty paces behind them. Arthur’s office was at the other end of the hall, and if he wasn’t paying attention to the door it almost looked as though they were just walking in place. It was slightly disconcerting, and it did nothing to ease the anxiety that was still present in his chest. He didn’t know where it was coming from, but he had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right. Kai and Juno both seemed incredibly confident in their plan and he wished he could feel the same, but he’d been taught to trust his instincts above all else and his instincts were telling him this was going to go wrong. He slowed down a bit, tugging Juno with him so they were a few paces behind Kai, and Juno turned to look at him with clear confusion on his face. 

“You okay?” He asked, his voice softer and taking on a more concerned tone. 

“This doesn’t feel right.” Peter said quietly. 

Juno smiled sympathetically at him. “Nothing here ever does.”

It was cryptic and concerning and did absolutely nothing to make Peter feel better, but he appreciated knowing he wasn’t alone in his feelings. He didn’t, however, appreciate knowing that this was a feeling Juno had been having for months on end. It was taking a toll on him to be feeling so anxious for such a short period of time, and he couldn’t imagine what the inside of Juno’s head looked like at this point. The mere thought of it baffled him. 

“Are you alright?” Peter asked, studying the tense line of Juno’s shoulders and the way his fingers kept flexing against his arm. He still hadn’t let go of him. 

“I hate it down here,” Juno said, casting a quick glance over at him. He had to turn his entire head to look at him and it made Peter feel slightly guilty for standing on his blind side. “Bad memories.” 

Peter smiled sympathetically at him. “I will admit I haven’t been overly fond of being underground for a while.” 

Juno winced. “Yeah, neither have I. And I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. I doubt it means much now but I figured I should say it.”

He’d apologized so many times now that the words felt as though they shouldn’t have meaning anymore, but they still did. They still hit him sharply in the chest every time they were uttered, still broke down the walls around his heart with their sincerity. He didn’t think it would ever hurt less to hear Juno say it, and he didn’t think Juno would ever stop apologizing. A vicious cycle, he supposed. 

“You have nothing to apologize for, Juno.” Peter sighed, a sad smile tugging at his lips. 

He rolled his eye. “Yeah I do.”

“I do hope you know I’ve already forgiven you,” Peter said softly. “And that there was never anything to forgive in the first place.”

“So what, you’re saying you were never mad?” Juno scoffed. 

Peter nodded. “I’m saying exactly that.” 

Juno turned to look at him, an unreadable expression on his face, and Peter felt his heart flip. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of a look like that in a while and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. 

“Are you two done?” 

Peter looked away from Juno long enough to notice Kai, who was standing outside of Arthur’s office with a knowing smile on her face. He hadn’t realized that they had made it to the office yet, but he supposed that had been happening to him quite a bit lately. Juno Steel was proving to be quite the distraction, though he couldn’t find it in him to complain. 

“Yes, we’re done.” Juno said, rolling his eye at her and dropping his hand from Peter’s arm. He missed the contact once it was gone but he didn’t dare say anything about it. 

“Great,” Kai grinned brightly, turning around and swiftly unlocking the door before pushing it open and gesturing inside. “In we go.”

Peter followed Juno into the office and tried not to let it show how nervous he was. It was clear by Juno’s body language that he was uncomfortable, and Peter couldn’t blame him. He figured he would probably be rather uncomfortable as well if he were to walk back into the place where he had been experimented on for months on end. The detective did have a habit of pissing off scientists with the means to make his life miserable, it seemed. The office looked exactly how Peter had expected it to from both the general furnishings of the rest of the hotel and the descriptions he had been given by both Juno and Kai. It was incredibly white, everything from the desk to the walls to the obnoxiously bright lights that came on when you clapped. The distinct lack of colour in the room was frankly rather absurd, and the way it made Juno’s hands curl into fists at his sides made Peter hate it even more. 

Kai followed after them, not bothering to close the door behind her as she started over towards the desk. She sat down in the large chair behind it and started rummaging around the drawers, casting a quick glance at the two of them when neither of them moved. 

“Well?” She said, raising an eyebrow at them. “Are you gonna help or just stand there?” 

Juno flipped her off before walking over to the other side of the room, pulling open a drawer of a filing cabinet against the opposite wall. Peter followed him, opening a different drawer and looking through it. There were plenty of papers organized in it and he had absolutely no idea what any of them were. 

“What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?” He asked, looking between the two of them. 

Kai didn’t look up from where she was leafing through a folder, simply shrugging in response. “Anything with the name Juno Steel on it.” 

“You really never done this before?” Juno asked. He was sitting on the floor now, a stack of paper beside him that was far too tall for the small amount of time he’d been looking. 

“Not all of us made a career out of being nosy.” Peter teased, and Juno rolled his eye at him. There was a small, fond smile on his face that made Peter’s heart squeeze in his chest. 

“You know what you have made a career out of though?” Kai said suddenly, standing up quickly and making her way over to him like she’d had a sudden thought. “Being places where you shouldn’t be.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Peter said. 

“Nobody is allowed in Arthur’s lab,” Kai explained, dumping more papers down on Juno’s pile. He looked slightly offended. “And apparently you have a talent for getting into places you’re not allowed.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a talent.” He shrugged. 

Juno scoffed. “You got us onto the Utgard Express. It’s a talent.”

Kai raised an eyebrow at him expectantly and he sighed. “Alright. Where am I going?” 

“Go back the way we came, down to hallways on the left. It’s the only hallway there, you can’t miss it.” She grinned. 

“We’ll check what Peter told me in reference with Arthur’s notes. Shout if you need anything.” Juno told him before turning back to the filing cabinet. 

Peter wasn’t exactly a fan of wandering out into the maze of a basement on his own and leaving Juno there with Kai, but he knew he wasn’t being given much of a choice. He had absolutely no idea what he was looking for within the office, and getting into places was one of the things he did best. Kai knew Arthur’s office and where he was most likely to store information, and Juno had been a detective. Snooping and gathering clues was something he was exceptionally good at, putting the pieces of a puzzle like this together almost second nature to him. It made no sense for either of them to go with him, so he made his way to the lab on his own. The directions Kai had given were rather vague, but he managed to follow them just fine. At least he hoped he was. It was a bit hard to tell at some points. 

The basement was just as silent as it had been before, Peter’s footsteps the only sound accompanying him. At least they were for a while. After a while though it sounded to him as if he was hearing two sets of footsteps. He stopped walking immediately, his entire body stiff with tension as he listened intently for the source of the noise. There was nothing. He shook it off, chalking it up to his mind playing tricks on him as he continued down the new hallway. He thought it was new, at least, but it was getting increasingly hard for him to tell all the identical cement walls apart. The second set of footsteps started up again, and this time when Peter stopped they didn’t. He wasn’t alone down here, and the thought of it terrified him. He reached towards his pocket before remembering he was unarmed, cursing lightly under his breath as he crept his way down the hall towards the source of the noise. Whoever this was he hoped they weren’t going to put up much of a fight. 

The footsteps stopped, and as he rounded the corner he saw a figure standing outside the exact door he had been going for. It wasn’t hard for him to tell who it was. His brain had been flooded with anxiety ever since he’d seen her at the bar, and even if he still didn’t recognize her it wasn’t hard for him to pinpoint that they were the same woman. He could see her clearer now under the bright lights, and he had to admit he was rather intimidated. She wasn’t exceptionally tall, but she did look strong. It wasn’t even the regular type of strong, either, the kind he associated with Juno or Buddy. It was the type of strong he associated with Jet. This woman looked like she could snap him in half like he was nothing more than a twig and feel absolutely no remorse for it. The thought unsettled him, but he shook it off quickly. Now wasn’t the time to focus on that. 

Her back was turned to him, giving him the upper hand in the situation. Stealth was one of Peter’s greatest skills, something he prided himself on, and he wasn’t going to be let down by it, not now. He crept down the hall slowly as the woman fiddled with the door, keeping his footfalls completely silent as he approached. The lack of a weapon unnerved him, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do when he got there, but he was getting better at thinking on his feet than he had been before. It was something Juno had insisted he needed to know how to do because his plans weren’t always going to work out exactly like he planned. Peter had complained endlessly about it at the time, but now he was more than thankful for it. 

He must have stepped somewhere he shouldn’t have, made some sort of noise he was unaware of, because next thing he knew the woman had turned around and there was a blaster aimed between his eyes. Honestly, he’d had a blaster pointed at him more times in the past few days than he had in months prior, and it was starting to get old. 

“You’re not supposed to be here.” She said, her voice low and slightly panicked. 

Peter shot her a smile. “And something tells me you aren’t either. We’ve got company!”

The woman’s finger flexed on the trigger as he shouted for the others, and for a second Peter feared he was about to get shot before she regained her composure, starting towards him quickly. He knew he had absolutely no chance of fending her off, so he didn’t struggle as she pushed him to his knees and aimed the blaster at the back of his head. At least now he didn’t have to go cross eyed to look at it, he thought as he listened to the sound of Juno and Kai as they ran over in their direction. He heard the sound of Juno’s heels clicking against the cement, and he came around the corner quickly, skidding around the corner and getting a face full of blaster as he did so, the woman raising it so it was no longer pointed at Peter but at him instead. 

“Woah, that’s a gun.” He said quickly, the words clearly leaving his mouth without any thought. He took a couple steps backwards, Kai coming around the corner behind him, and he completely froze as he looked at the woman. She froze too. 

“Please tell me I’m seeing things.” She said, exasperation clear in her voice. 

Juno’s eyes widened. “Alessandra.”

“Alessandra Strong?” Kai asked, looking between the two of them a couple of times, her eyes narrowed in confusion. 

That was a name Peter knew, but he didn’t think he’d ever be meeting the woman face to face. Well, face to blaster, technically, but he didn’t like to count technicalities in these sorts of things. Alessandra had been the one to go looking for the Free Dome with Juno all those months ago, the two of them getting tangled up in a political scheme that was much, much more than they signed up for. Juno spoke fondly of her when he’d had his small breakdown a few nights before, like she was someone he would consider a friend under different circumstances. Peter had to admit she was making one hell of a first impression. 

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Alessandra said, dropping her arm and letting the blaster clatter to to the floor almost unnoticed. “Steel?”

“It’s good to see you, Alessandra.” Juno smiled at her. It was awkward and still, but Peter could tell it was genuine. 

Alessandra moved forward like she wasn’t in control of her own body, taking a few steps towards Juno until she was properly in front of him. Peter wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it hadn’t been for her first to connect with his jaw hard enough that it made him stumble. Kai grabbed onto his shoulder to steady him and he gripped his face, looking up at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face. 

“I thought you were dead, Steel.” She snarled, her eyes wide as she took him in. She still looked like she had seen a ghost, and Peter couldn’t blame her. He’d felt much the same when he’d seen Juno again. 

“That seems to be a common thing these days,” Juno huffed, straightening up and cracking his jaw to alleviate some of the pain in it. He was definitely going to have a bruise there in the morning. “You still kiss as good as you punch, cause I think I’d much prefer that greeting.” 

Peter didn’t want to ask why he knew that she was a good kisser, and she didn’t seem inclined to speak on it either. “Forgive me for not knowing if I was seeing a ghost. Last time I saw you you were in the martian desert outside a dome. You should be dead.” 

“And last time I saw you you were on the other side of a closing door in the martian desert.” Juno argued. 

She sighed. “Why aren’t you dead?” 

Juno shrugged and crossed his arms. “Made some friends. They got me out of a sticky situation.” 

“And the piranha?” She asked. 

“Dead.” Juno said simply, and Peter could see how uncomfortable he was with the statement in his eyes. 

Kai moved past the two of them easily and over to Peter, crouching down next to him and looking him over for a second. “Are you okay?”

“Nothing harmed but my pride.” He said, and she huffed out a bit of a laugh. 

“Who are these two anyway?” Alessandra asked, gesturing over to the two of them as Kai helped Peter to his feet. 

“Kai Lazarus, and this is Rex Glass. Juno’s told me all about you.” Kai grinned at her. 

Alessandra raised an eyebrow. “He has?” 

“Of course he has,” Kai shrugged, looping her arm through Peter’s as though it was second nature for the two of them. “Why wouldn’t he? I am his wife, after all.”

That seemed to get Alessandra’s attention, and she turned back to Juno quickly. He smiled sheepishly at her. “Surprise?” 

“You’re married?” She asked, her tone full of disbelief. 

“Is that really so hard to believe?” He scoffed. 

She crossed her arms as she glared at him. “Yes. Especially when you’re married to a Lazarus.” 

“Does that mean you know what they’ve been up to?” Juno asked. 

“Arthur Lazarus hired me,” She shrugged. “Guy’s suspicious as hell though, so I decided to do some digging. What do you know?” 

“It’s a long story, and it’s not one we can tell you here. Let’s just get what we came for and go, alright?” Kai said quickly. She sounded more nervous than Peter had heard her before. 

Juno opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by a loud cracking noise. A low rumble started in the walls, and before they knew it the floor was starting to shake underneath them. Peter stumbled a bit, crashing his shoulder against the wall and using it to support his body. There were cracks splitting through the cement up and down the walls and along the floor, the light fixtures rattling with the force of the shaking. Peter had never endured an earthquake before, but he felt this is probably a lot like one of those. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Juno shouted. He was holding onto Alessandra’s arm to keep the both of them steady, but it wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Nobody had an answer for him, so they didn’t say anything as the world continued to shake around them. It was getting worse and worse, the sound of the cement splitting driving Peter’s anxiety through the roof. He had absolutely no idea what was going on, but he knew it was terrifying him. 

“Holy shit, Peter look out!” Kai screamed behind him, her voice sudden and loud. 

He hardly had time to react before there was another loud crack and the ceiling split in two. Alessandra dragged Juno back out of the way, and he caught Peter’s eye for a brief second before the ceiling came down around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you didn't see that one coming did ya? Juno and Alessandra deserved a chance to work out their shit and I'm here to give it to them. Also I just love Alessandra and couldn't pass up an opportunity to include my buff wife in this because it's what she deserves. We got some Peter development, some Peter and Juno bonding, and a surprise appearance from Alessandra Strong herself, how exciting! Is anyone in this story worth trusting? Why did Arthur hire a private investigator? What the hell was that ending? Let me know what you think, I really do love reading all your thoughts on this and they're genuinely one of the best parts of my day. 
> 
> I'm working on a couple of other fics right now on top of school work I need to catch up on over the break, so that's why this chapter is a little bit late. Sorry about that. On the bright side, I have another Penumbra fic coming your way soon, as well as a couple of one shots, and if any of you are fans of The Two Princes you can look forward to a fic about those boys any time now!
> 
> I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during quarantine, and remember to wash your hands and stay in your house. 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors you find so I can fix them :)

“Peter! Peter, hey, you okay?” 

Peter grumbled a little bit, squeezing his eyes shut tighter when he tried to open them. It seemed like a rather pointless endeavor really. He had been starting to enjoy being knocked out, though that could be because it was the best sleep he’d gotten in months. He tried not to speculate too much about it because honestly he’d had a very stressful day and a nap would probably do him a world of good. The one he’d been forced into having by some falling cement was clearly not long enough.

“Peter Nureyev I swear if you die right now Juno is gonna kill me.”

That though, that caught his attention more than desperately wanting to sleep did. There was exactly one person in the entire galaxy who knew his name and the voice that had just said it did not belong to him. Sleep might have been tempting, but he had a well protected secret being shared by someone he’d never told it to and getting to the bottom of that was a matter of self preservation. He groaned once again before forcing his eyes open, expecting to have to blink them a few times to adjust them to the light. He didn’t have to do that. The hallway was significantly darker than it had been last time his eyes had been open, and he suspected that had something to do with their current predicament. 

Kai was kneeling on the floor next to him, an expression of pure concern covering her face as she checked him over. Her clothes were rumpled and she had patches of cement dust across her skin, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. That was good to see. Even if he didn’t trust her Peter knew he didn’t want her to get hurt. That would have been inhumane of him, he thought. She’d managed to produce a hair tie from somewhere and pull her hair back, leaving him with an unobstructed view of the concern she was directing at him. It was odd, he thought, to be on the receiving end of someone like Kai’s concern. 

“What did you just call me?” He asked, his voice coming out scratchy as he forced himself into a sitting position. 

“Peter.” She said. It was clear from her tone that she didn’t understand why he was asking. 

“No, not just that,” Peter told her. His head ached and his muscles complained with every movement as he tried to reorient himself. “You said my name, my full name.”

Kai laughed lightly, patting him on the knee. “How hard did you hit your head?”

“I’m serious Kai.” He said sharply, and she sighed.

“Peter. Peter Ransom. That’s all I said.” Her voice was firm as she spoke, and she sounded so sure that Peter felt he had to believe her. 

He could have been hearing things. There was always a chance that she was right, that he’d just hit his head rather hard and his mind was playing tricks on him because of it. He wanted that to be the case, he truly did, but the one thing Peter had always been able to count on was his own head. The idea of not trusting himself was uncomfortable, to say the least. For a minute he wondered if this was how Juno must feel, constantly distrusting himself and his own memory as those around him insisted things happened differently than he remembered them. His heart ached more than every for the lady. The pure panic on his face as the ceiling had come down around them replayed in Peter’s mind and he scanned the room quickly for him. He wasn’t there, and it made Peter’s anxiety skyrocket. 

“Where are Juno and Alessandra?” He asked, trying to mask some of the panic in his voice. He wasn’t quite sure if it worked or if Kai chose to ignore it, both options seeming equally as likely at this point. 

“We got split up.” She said simply, nodding her head in the direction of where they had previously been. 

Peter looked over and felt his heart drop a little bit. There was a large pile of chunks of the ceiling lying in the middle of the hallway, blocking them from getting back and the others from getting through. There were large gaps in the ceiling above them that continued to crack and split outwards, the lighting fixtures broken off and hanging onto the walls by mere wires. Half of the remaining bulbs had been blown out and a couple of the ones that hadn’t been were flickering ominously. It felt eerily like the setting of one of the horror streams he’d holed up and watched with Rita on their particularly bad nights and he could have laughed at the absurdity of it. 

“Are they okay?” Peter didn’t know if Kai would even know the answer to that question, but he had to ask. He needed the peace of mind. 

She nodded and he felt some of the stale basement air return to his aching lungs. “They’re gonna go find a way around. They’re both a little scraped up but otherwise they’re fine.” 

“You’re sure?” He asked, and she nodded again before huffing out a tiny laugh. 

“Well it was Juno who was insisting they were fine, and you and I both know he’s not exactly the most honest about that stuff.” She smiled like she was remembering something nice, and Peter couldn’t help but laugh a little as well. 

“Any idea what happened?” Peter forced himself to his feet, his entire body protesting at the movement. 

Kai stood as well and held onto his arm to help him stand and steady himself, her other outstretched just in case until he got his balance. “Freak storm, if I had to guess. The comms signals are all down, so it can’t be just us.” 

“You don’t think Arthur had anything to do with it, do you?” The question sounded absurd even to him, but he bit the bullet and asked anyway. 

“Not unless he can suddenly control the weather,” She shrugged, brushing some dust off the knees of her pants like the rest of her wasn’t already covered in it. “These things happen sometimes, it’s just never hit this side of the planet before. Guess we just got lucky.”

“Must have.” He said, giving her a stiff smile as he tried his best to wrestle his clothing back into place. 

“There is a bright side though.” Kai said. 

Peter struggled to see how there could possibly be any benefit to their situation, but he indulged her regardless. “And that would be?” 

She smiled at him mischievously before turning around and grasping the doorknob of Arthur’s lab. She pushed down on it hard, and the door opened up a crack with a series of metallic groans and pops that did not sound like they were supposed to happen. He rolled his eyes when she turned back to him and grinned, but he would admit that yes, that was a bright side. Kai shoved the door a little harder, and it gave way under her weight, swinging the rest of the way open. Inside wasn’t exactly a thrilling option, Peter would admit, but he’d much rather be in there than out in the hallway. The room seemed to be better off as well, so he let Kai grab him by the wrist and lead him through the doorway, carefully stepping around fallen chunks of cement and a downed bookshelf that blocked their path. 

Kai fumbled around on the wall clumsily for a light switch, and once she found it Peter almost wished she hadn’t. His hopes of the lab being better off than the hall were immediately crushed when he saw the space. The damage to the overall structure of the room was less extensive, sure, but the shaking of the building had done quite the number on whatever organization it had had before. There were papers from the few shelves lining the walls spread out over the floor, screens he assumed had once been standing collapsed onto their sides. The walls and floor were covered in a light coating of dust, and despite all the imperfections in the previously immaculate space Peter couldn’t help but think it looked exactly the way Juno had described it. A perfect prison, that’s what he had said it was, and he felt that he was inclined to agree. 

“Well, this isn’t ideal.” Kai remarked from his side. She was still holding onto him, her fingers loosely wrapped around his wrist. She was shaking. 

“Are you alright?” Peter asked carefully. 

She turned to look at him with her eyes wide in a way that felt wrong. “What?”

“You’re shaking.” He said, and she dropped his wrist like it had burned her, pulling her hand up to her chest. 

“I’m fine. It’s just been a while since I was in here is all,” She moved away from him quickly, stepping over one of the downed screens and crouching down amidst all the papers scattered on the floor. “Come on, we might as well start looking while we wait.” 

There was something she wasn’t telling him. That much was as obvious as the air in the space between them, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was. There were no clues pointing at anything, no suspicious activity that he could link to her lying to him, not recently. He’d never found her trustworthy, but that had been based more on the fact that she shared blood with the exact people they were trying to stop and that he knew family meant quite a lot to her. That much was rather clear as well. He could see it in the way she protected Juno or the way she talked about her brother. She cared about them, would do anything for them. He just didn’t know if that protection extended to Arthur as well. Nothing was sticking out at him, not really, and not for the first time he wished he had Juno there to investigate with, even if he knew he could never voice his suspicions to the detective. He had sworn never to hurt him again, and he knew telling him of his distrust towards someone he loved so completely would do exactly that. 

Only one thing was weighing on his mind as he sat down on the floor to help leaf through the mess of papers. His name, the real one, and more specifically the fact that Kai had said it. He thought she had, anyway, though he couldn’t fully convince himself that he’d been hearing things. It had been so long since someone had known his name before Juno, and it was so nice to hear it again. He’d memorized the way it sounded when it fell from his lips, every inflection and the sound of each letter in his voice only. It felt wrong to hear it come from someone else. Poisonous, in a way. He couldn’t imagine exactly the way it sounded coming from her, from anyone but Juno, instead, and that was only further proof to him that he hadn’t been hearing things. He couldn’t have been, because it was something so private to just the two of them that he hadn’t dared think that someone else could ever know it. So why did she?

“I can practically hear you thinking from here,” Kai said, and Peter looked up at her over the papers he was skimming. She didn’t look at him, keeping her eyes trained on the open notebook in front of her, but there was a soft, teasing smile playing at her lips that reminded him so much of Juno that he wanted to scream. “What’s up?”

“You’re not telling me something.” Peter said plainly. 

If the accusation bothered Kai she didn’t show it, instead letting herself finish reading the page she was on and flip the notebook over on the floor to keep her place. Her legs were crossed under her in a way that made her look far too small in comparison to how Peter usually viewed her, and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. He got like that a lot these days, he realized, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. He just filed it away for later. 

“You can’t be mad.” Kai said, folding her hands together in her lap. 

He scoffed. “If you’ve been lying to me I think I have every right to be mad at you.” 

“You can be as mad at me as you want,” She said, holding her hands up slightly in surender. She was moving them a lot, he noticed, and he wondered for a moment if she was nervous. “But you can’t be mad at Juno.” 

Peter hadn’t considered the fact that whatever he wanted her to confess would cause him to be angry towards Juno, but now that he had he didn’t want to. Juno was the one person in the galaxy that Peter felt he could trust completely, the one person he’d resolved to share his most well kept secret with, and the idea that he could be swayed on that idea absolutely terrified him. There was only so much a man could take, no matter how in love he was, and Peter didn’t know if he’d be able to handle the knowledge that Juno had betrayed his greatest confidence. 

“I won’t.” He said, and even he didn’t know if he was telling the truth. 

Kai sighed and scrubbed a hand across her face. It was another one of her small actions that made him think of Juno, another small piece of physical proof of exactly how much time and trauma the two had together. He was rubbing off on her. Nothing drastic, he could tell that much, but some small things about her seemed to be more a learned practice than something she’d started doing herself. It filled him with the strangest mix of comfort and disgust to recognize it. 

“We haven’t been lying to you,” She said finally, and it was so absurd that Peter almost laughed. “Not really. We just haven’t been telling you the entire truth.” 

“I like to consider that lying.” He said, and she shot him a sharp look. 

“Then that makes you quite the liar yourself, doesn’t it?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

He’d kind of walked into that one, he’d give her that. “So what haven’t you been telling us?”

“Look, I don’t remember all of it, okay? I don’t even know what happened. All I know is that something went wrong in one of their tests and Juno was hurt. Really hurt. He was losing a lot of blood and I’m a universal donor so I let them give him some of mine. I did it to save his life, you have to know that.” 

Peter thought that, had he been in the same situation, he probably would have done the exact same thing. He couldn’t blame her for anything yet, but the moment he found something he was going to use it against her. “And then?” 

“I blacked out,” She said simply, shrugging lightly before letting out a heavy sight. “I woke up about six days later with a head full of thoughts that weren’t mine and he woke up half an hour later missing half of his. I don’t know what Arthur did, I swear, but whatever it was I know everything Juno knows now.” 

“Everything?” Peter asked, his voice slightly shaky. 

She nodded. “If he remembers it I do too. It doesn’t go both ways, but the more holes he gets in his memory the more I have to try and patch them with what I think are the right answers but I can’t be sure because it wasn’t me.” 

“Everything.” He repeated, slower this time, and she smiled sadly at him. It was the most defeated he thought he had ever seen her look. 

“I’m sorry, Nureyev.” She said softly, and Peter felt his breath catch in his throat. He felt like he was going to be sick, or maybe like he was going to cry or scream or do all three at once. He didn’t know. He didn’t feel like he knew anything anymore.

“So you know.” It was a stupid remark and he knew it, but had to say it out loud. He had to get it out into the universe that someone else knew the most well guarded piece of him out there and he’d never decided they needed to. Worst of all he knew he couldn’t even blame either of them. They didn’t ask for this any more than he did, and it stung like someone had poured a box of salt into a fresh wound. 

“If I could go back to not knowing I would, and I swear I’m not going to use it against you. I wouldn’t have even when I thought you were dead. Please Peter, you have to believe me.” Kai pleaded. 

She sounded desperate and painfully sincere, her voice shaking with her shoulders as she clearly struggled to hold herself together, and Peter wondered for a moment how he had ever managed to convince himself the girl sitting in front of him was a threat to his anonymity. She looked like a child now, her eyes wide and glassy and her bottom lip wedged tight enough between her teeth to draw blood. Everything about her seemed so old and so young at the same time, and he couldn’t help but understand. The mere act of telling someone what she and Juno had been keeping from them visibly appeared to lift a weight from her shoulders, and Peter’s questioning about his name had crashed an even heavier one down onto her. He didn’t know what he could say to her, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead he just shuffled closer to her and pulled her towards his chest. She collapsed against him easily, her entire body shaking in his arms. It felt like if he held her too tightly she might just shatter. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” She breathed the words harshly into his shoulder over and over again, not quite crying but seeming to be almost there. Her fists were balled up tightly in the fabric of his jacket, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but hold her. Apologies were coming out of her like she’d die if they stopped, and he could tell that she meant every single one of them. It broke his heart, just a little, because once again she reminded him so much of Juno. 

He’d been in a similar state when Peter had first met him. Not at a point of sobbing out a constant string of apologies, sure, but he’d been equally as damaged. It was part of what had initially drawn him to the detective. The desire to see what was under the mask that was so clearly put up but almost impossible to see around. He got glimpses here and there, but it was hard to see through the cracks when whatever was behind it held no light. He’d felt a similar way about Kai when he first met her. It was a fact that he realized more as he thought back on it, and he felt like a fool for not having seen it before. She moved too fast for him to notice, never sticking around long enough for anyone to get a good enough look at the details. He didn’t pity her. That’s not what it was and he knew it. He understood her, he thought. Maybe not directly, but he knew what it felt like to hide something for so long that you started to forget why. 

“I forgive you.” He breathed out lightly. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was forgiving her for, but he knew that he meant it, and that was enough. 

The sound of approaching footsteps put both of them back on their guard, and they moved away from each other quickly, both preparing to take someone down just in case. Peter relaxed a bit when Juno and Alessandra walked quickly into the room. They both looked a little worse for wear, scratches and bruises dotting their exposed skin and cement dust sticking to their clothes and their hair, but they were otherwise unharmed. That knowledge lifted a greater weight off of his shoulders than he cared to admit. 

“Peter.” Juno said softly, pausing with half his body through the doorway. 

Alessandra raised her eyebrows in clear surprise. “Really? Him?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter said. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Juno waved him off, moving further into the room and kneeling down on the floor next to him. He swept his eye over his body a couple of times before being satisfied with his examination. “I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“I could say the same about you.” Peter replied. His tone was softer than it had been before, and it was clear that Juno could tell. He looked from Peter to Kai and his eye widened just a fraction.

“Are you okay?” He asked her. 

She smiled, and it looked far too easy for the state she had been in just a moment prior. “Peachy.” 

“Find anything interesting?” Alessandra asked. She had positioned herself beside the door, her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall and surveyed the room. Everything about her looked decidedly uncomfortable, and she seemed eager to change the subject. The faster they got this done the faster they could get out of there, after all. 

“I did, actually.” Kai said, reaching for the notebook she’d set down in front of her. Peter hadn’t realized she’d been reading it long enough to find anything worth noting, but he did suppose she was better at this than she was. 

She stood up quickly, keeping her eyes trained on the book as she moved over to the one cabinet that was still standing, though it did appear to be bolted to the wall. It was sealed with a passcode, but all she had to do was jam her stiletto through it and it short circuited and swung open easily. Whatever was in there was important, that much was clear. Kai rooted around inside for a second before making a sound of triumph, two glass tubes of something in her hand when she pulled it back out. She moved to the other side of the room and set them down on the, surprisingly still standing, bed before crouching down and opening one of the cabinets that had fallen over. She emerged with two syringes and a satisfied smile on her face. 

“What are you doing?” Alessandra asked, voicing the thoughts of everyone else in the room quite well. She pushed off the wall and walked a little bit closer to them. 

Kai tossed the notebook down on the bed with the tubes and the syringes and smiled up at them. “Something incredibly stupid. Care to join, Juno?”

Peter had to hold himself back from physically stopping Juno when he started moving over to Kai, curiosity clear on his face. “What is it?” 

“Do you trust me?” She questioned instead of giving a clear answer, but Juno answered her anyway. 

“Always.” He said, and it sounded like the easiest thing in the world for him. 

She grinned and picked up one of the syringes, sticking the needle into the tube and sucking up some of the liquid inside. “Great.” 

“Would you care to explain what, exactly, you’re injecting yourselves with?” Peter asked. It wasn’t hard to tell that that was Kai’s plan, and it was clear that Juno was going to go along with it as he accepted the syringe she offered him. 

“Don’t know,” She shrugged as she filled the other syringe. “And if I did I don’t think you’d believe me.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Alessandra snapped. 

Kai didn’t answer her, instead lining the needle of the syringe up with her arm. Juno followed suit, albeit a little slower, and looked up at her. She nodded, catching his eye for a long moment, and before Peter could fully process everything he was rushing forward to catch Juno as he crashed to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes am I right? This chapter probably wasn't what you were expecting, and I'm hitting you with two cliffhangers in a row. We got even more Peter and Kai bonding, a bit of an explanation about Juno and Kai, and some mysterious liquid in mysterious tubes. What a chapter. What do you think was in the tubes? Was Kai telling the truth about her and Juno? What the hell is Arthur up to? Tell me what you think.
> 
> My April fool's joke was not uploading for a week, sorry if that upset you. In all seriousness I've been physically incapable of telling what day of the week it is for the past little while. Quarantine is really starting to take a toll on me mentally, so sorry if chapters are a little bit later or of a lower quality than you're used to. I promise I'm not doing it on purpose. Stay safe and stay healthy and for fucks sake stay at home.
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them :)

Juno was pretty sure if he coughed any harder he’d be missing a lung by the time he was done. Air full of dust wasn’t exactly new for him, he had spent who knows how long in the martian desert after all. Exposure didn’t mean his lungs were immune to the swift stabbing pain of breathing in small chunks of cement, though, and it didn’t mean his eye wasn’t tearing up as he violently tried to blink away the bits that drifted into them. Alessandra didn’t sound to be in much better shape, her own coughing echoing in the hallway around them as the dust settled. He couldn’t hear Kai or Nureyev, and he fought with his brain to keep himself from imagining the worst. Enough of the ceiling had collapsed between them that there was no safe way for them to get around to the other side, but there was still a somewhat wide gap at the top that let sound through, and Kai’s voice came through it relatively quickly. 

“You two okay?” She called, coughing a bit through her sentence. 

Juno took a moment to look over Alessandra where she stood next to him. Aside from the coughing and a thin layer of dust she looked relatively unharmed by the entire ordeal. The two of them were still holding onto each other, and he didn’t feel very inclined to let go. 

“We’re fine!” He called back. “What about on your end?” 

“I’m okay!” Kai answered. The lack of mention of Nureyev sent a spike of fear through him so sharp it winded him. 

“What about Rex?” Alessandra asked, looking at Juno with a concerned expression and clearly recognizing that he wasn’t going to ask even though he wanted to. 

It took Kai a moment to answer, and every extra second of silence that stretched out down the hallway took another ten years off of Juno’s life. He couldn’t help but let his mind imagine the absolute worst, his thoughts spiralling quickly in a way so efficient it was obvious that he’d been doing it for years. Nureyev could be dead or dying and any second now Kai was going to tell him and he’d have to continue trying to live with that knowledge weighing on him. Or maybe she wouldn’t tell him. She’d say he was fine and leave him to think all was alright until they met up again and Nureyev wasn’t there. That thought was ridiculous, Kai would never do something like that to him and he knew it, but it didn’t leave his mind anyway until she spoke again.

“He’s gonna be okay.” She said, her voice a little softer than before, and Juno felt so relieved he thought he might cry because he knew she was telling him the truth. 

“Is there any way for us to get around?” Alessandra asked. Leave it to her to ask the useful questions, he thought, though the idea of it made him bite back a fond smile. 

“Check the service hallway,” Kai suggested. “Do you remember where that is?” 

Juno racked his brain for both the location of said hallway and why, exactly, he’d know where it was. Every time he thought he had it his thoughts seemed to skip over it, any indication that remained blurry and unclear when he tried to call on it. He was beyond tired of this, the struggle to remember things he knew were there. So far he’d only forgotten more recent things, the past couple of years gaining more and more gaps as days went on, but he didn’t know what he’d do once it extended to his older memories. His childhood had been pretty shit, hell, most of his adulthood had been as well, but that didn’t mean he wanted to forget it. Not having the bad things wasn’t worth giving up the good things, and there were a good amount of those mixed in. Piercing his nose in Mick’s bathroom, drinking on the roof of their high school the night before graduation, the feeling of getting a job with the HCPD, the smile Rita gave him when he agreed to watch her streams with her, Ben. He didn’t know what he’d do if he forgot Ben, couldn’t bear the thought enough to even entertain it long enough to consider. 

“It’s back by the emergency exit, right?” He asked finally. 

His inner conflict must have been clear in his voice, because Kai sounded incredibly sincere when she answered. “Yeah, that’s exactly where it is.”

“Great.” Juno didn’t move his eyes away from the floor. 

“Do you still have your blaster on you?” Kai asked. Juno looked down, and sure enough it was there, still strapped to his thigh and in good condition despite the dust. 

“Do you think we’ll need it?” Alessandra asked. She looked between Juno and the rest of the hallway with a skeptical expression. 

“Being prepared never killed anyone.” She said. Juno didn’t miss the way she dodged the question, and it was clear that Alessandra hadn’t either, but neither of them called her on it. 

He wanted to scream, to throw something or punch something or fling himself into a stupidly reckless situation, but those had all been on the list of poor coping skills Rita had given and he knew that she’d be disappointed in him when he got back if that was how he dealt with it. She’d never tell him that, but he’d know, and somehow that was worse. Thinking of Rita reminded him of how worried the crew must be, but the universe seemed to be against them and, of course, the signal was down when he checked. 

“Comms signal is out. Looks like we’re on our own,” He said, and he almost laughed when Alessandra visibly gimmanced. The situation felt increasingly grim as he thought about it, and if he couldn’t deal with it in any of the ways he wanted to he might as well distract from it, so he tried to lift the mood a little bit. “Fifty creds says I miss if I actually have to shoot anything.” 

Kai gave a somewhat watery laugh in response. “A hundred says you get it.” 

“I’ll see you soon.” Juno said, trying to keep his voice firm as he stared pointedly at the heaps of rock between them. He twisted his wedding ring around on his finger in a way he knew comforted him, and he didn’t miss the way Alessandra looked at him for that. She didn’t mention it, but he could tell she wanted to, and it made him decidedly uncomfortable. He didn’t stop twisting his ring regardless. 

“I’ll see you soon.” Kai echoed, and that was that. There was nothing more that either of them could or needed to say, he knew that, but knowing didn’t stop him from hesitating for a moment before moving down the hall. Alessandra followed his lead, clearly trusting him to know where he was going, and that type of trust felt incredibly misplaced in his given state. He didn’t say anything regardless. 

Neither of them said anything for a long time, but not for lack of wanting to. There were hundreds of things Juno wanted to ask her about, to tell her about. He’d always liked Alessandra, even back in the beginning. None of that had been a lie and he wished he could have expressed that better before because now it felt like it was far too late. The last time he’d seen her she’d been on the other side of a door that was closing and sentencing him to what should have been his death, and he knew first hand how traumatising events like that were. It didn’t feel like there was anything he could say to her now that would ever convince her to forgive him for showing up again out of the blue. Part of him, the logical part, knew that none of what happened was his fault. He’d just been doing his job, and it was a job he’d needed help with, so he’d turned to someone he trusted. It wasn’t his fault that it had all gone horribly, horribly wrong. He knew that, really, he did. That didn’t stop him from blaming himself for it anyway. 

Blaming himself had always been one of Juno’s specialties, and old habits die hard, even if he’d been trying to get better. He couldn’t help but hold himself responsible for every inconvenience in his life, no matter how minor. It all felt like one big cosmic joke. He’d call it a curse if he believed in them. He remembered Mick telling him, back when they’d been dealing with the Proctor, that he thought he had really bad luck. It felt like eons ago, and the idea that it had actually only been a little over a year was baffling. He couldn’t help but feel that the statement was starting to have some truth to it. Maybe Mick had been onto it after all. Wouldn’t that be something, he thought. Mick Mercury predicting his downfall better than he could. He’d probably decided he needed to go into a career as a psychic if he told him. If he ever got the chance to tell him. 

“I was being serious,” Alessandra said, breaking the stiff silence that had been untouched other than the sound of their footsteps through the halls as Juno tried desperately to remember where he was going while she followed him blindly. “When I said I thought you were dead.” 

“And I was being serious when I said that’s a common occurrence.” He shrugged. 

She made a sound in the back of her throat that almost sounded like a growl. “This isn’t a joke, Steel. I spent months mourning you. Months! You didn’t think to call, maybe send a note? Anything to let me know you weren’t dead.” 

“I tried,” Juno said, shooting her a glance out of the corner of his good eye. “During the whole New Town thing. You weren’t on Mars.” 

“I left because I didn’t wanna be around when Ramses officially declared you dead. I knew I couldn’t handle that.” She said. 

Part of Juno wanted to yell at her, call her a coward for being unable to face the reality of what had happened. Another part of him wanted to call attention to how unfair it was that she got to skip town and not have to deal with the worst part of losing someone when he’d been stuck in the middle of it enough times now that it left him numb to the idea. There was even another part that wanted to call her a liar, throw her words back in her face and argue that she didn’t mean anyone because why would she, why would anyone, ever mourn Juno Steel. He didn’t deserve to be missed, that was a fact he’d settled on long ago. 

He didn’t give voice to any of those parts of him. “You saying you would have checked?” He asked instead. 

“Yes!” She said sharply. “Some of us bother to check up on the people we care about once in a while you know.”

Juno stopped for a second. “You care.” 

It wasn’t a question, not exactly. It was more of a statement, something he had to say out loud to be able to fully process the meaning behind. Deep down he thought he’d always known, or at least hoped, that Alessandra cared about him, but it was impossible to be sure. He’d caused her so much grief in the short amount of time that they’d known each other that he wouldn’t put it past her to resent him entirely, to hate his very being. It was strange, in a way, to have confirmation that she didn’t.

“I’ve always cared.” She said. He wasn’t sure if the idea made him uncomfortable or emotional, but either way he knew he didn’t want to deal with it, not right now, so he started walking again. 

“I’m sorry, Alessandra.” He said, his voice gentler, more sincere, than it had been before, and her face softened. 

“I know,” She didn’t accept his apology, didn’t fully acknowledge that it was one at all, and he was grateful for that. “So, you and Kai.” 

Juno laughed a little at the abrupt change in conversation, but he welcomed it. “Me and Kai.” 

They had to pause their conversation for a moment to open the obnoxiously heavy door to the service hallway, but Alessandra picked it up again quickly once they were in the hall. It was comforting, in a way, to know that he wasn’t the only one so eager to catch up. 

“I didn’t think she was your type.” She said.

Juno wrinkled his nose in distaste. “I don’t have a type. Why does everyone keep saying that?” 

Alessandra shrugged, stepping over a fallen piece of cement and helping Juno to do the same without breaking his neck in his heels. “Because you have a type.”

“I do not,” He argued, rolling his eyes at the concept, but he didn’t fight her further on the subject. “And Kai and I aren’t actually a couple.”

“That sounds like a story.” She said, raising an eyebrow at him when he looked over at her, and Juno laughed at how strong of an understatement that was. 

“We’re doing what we can to get her family to trust me. Arthur has something shady going on and I wanna get to the bottom of it, and I can’t do that if they don’t think I’m on their side,” Juno explained. Alessandra huffed out a laugh and Juno squinted at her in confusion. “What?”

“You always have to be the one to save the world, don’t you?” She asked, knocking her shoulder gently into his as they walked, making him stumble a bit on his heels. 

He shoved her back in retaliation and they both laughed. It felt nice to laugh with her so easily again. That was one of the things he’d always loved about their short friendship. Things felt easy with Alessandra in a way they didn’t with most other people, and while he wasn’t exactly sure of the reason why he didn’t find reason to complain about it. 

“So I have a bit of a martyr complex. Sue me.” He shrugged. 

“So if you aren’t actually in love with her why do you trust her?” Alessandra asked him once the laughter had died down. 

It was a good question, Juno would admit. He was sure that if he were on the outside of things and someone else were the one in his position, the one giving every single one of their secrets away to someone who by all accounts was the enemy, he’d be questioning them just as much as everyone else was questioning him. That didn’t make it any easier to hear it on a constant loop from everyone around him, though. He’d come to learn that there was a funny thread between knowing the facts of something and how you felt about it. The connection was that there wasn’t one. He couldn’t convince himself not to feel something just because he knew on some level that those feelings were unjustified. Rita had always told him that you couldn’t control your feelings, and he’d never been sure what that meant or if there was any truth in it. It turned out that there had been all along, and pushing down and ignoring your feelings was nowhere near the same thing as having any say over them. It was embarrassing how long it had taken him to figure that out. 

“I’ve been through hell the past few months, years even,” Juno said, slowing his pace down slightly so he could think properly as he walked. Alessandra followed suit and slowed to walk beside him. “There was a long, long while where I didn’t feel like I had any reason to be alive. I lost the only purpose I’d ever had with my brother and for a while I was just existing. And then I finally found it again, and I hardly had time to get used to it before it was ripped away from me. I lost everything, and I mean everything. My home, my family, my friends, you name it and I didn’t have it. I felt hopeless, Alessandra.” 

There was sympathy clearly on her face when he looked at her, but there wasn’t pity. He was glad. He didn’t think he could handle being pitied right then. “And then you met her.”

“And then I met her,” He echoed. “I know I shouldn’t trust her, really, I do, but that doesn’t mean that’s how I feel. Going through shit like that with someone makes you wanna trust them, and she was there for me. I’d lost absolutely everything and amidst it all I gained one good thing, and I couldn’t bring myself to let that go. I still can’t.” 

“I get it.” Alessandra said gently. She grabbed Juno’s hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. He squeezed back in thanks before she let go. 

“I want her to be good so bad.” Juno whispered. For a moment he felt like he was going to cry, and just the idea of it made him feel so pathetic he didn’t know what to do. 

Alessandra didn’t judge him, though. Instead she stayed steady at his side and looked at him with a gentle understanding that made him want to break down completely because he knew she would be there through it. “I do too. For your sake.” 

Juno let out a sharp breath that combined roughly with a wet laugh and echoed in the rather cramped service hall around them. He’d considered the possibility before, of course, that Kai wasn’t being truthful with him. He hadn’t gotten as far as he had in his life trusting absolutely anyone, after all. Old habits die hard, and another one of his happened to be overanalyzing every situation. It had been beneficial as a detective and detrimental to his social life, but it was something that he did, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her, replaying every conversation they’d ever had countless times in his head to try and find the holes in them, the one place that could give her away as meaning something other than what she was telling him. There hadn’t been any, and maybe it had been the vulnerable state he was in, or maybe she was just an incredibly convincing liar, but she exited his exam just as trustworthy as she had been when she entered it. 

He wasn’t quite sure what he’d do if it turned out that she had been lying to him all along. Beat himself up for it, now that was a given. He was the detective, he was the one who was supposed to notice the fatal flaws in people and exploit them to find out if they were someone he could trust. Giving that trust away to someone who shouldn’t have had it wasn’t something he was supposed to do, and it always ached when he did it regardless. She knew so much, as well, and not just about their plan to figure out what Arthur was up to. Kai knew parts of Juno that very few people did, knew every thought that had ever passed through his head. She knew him like the back of her hand, and he still trusted her completely. There was only so much damage a person could take before they broke, and he thought a betrayal like that might just shatter him beyond repair. 

“You sure you aren’t in love with her?” Alessandra asked, her tone teasing yet still slightly concerned. Juno appreciated her for her abrupt attempts at changing subjects. “You seem pretty fond of her.”

Juno laughed a bit and shook his head. “No. Not with her.” 

Alessandra raised her eyebrows at him, a flicker of a smile taking over her face. “That implies that there is someone, though.” 

“No it doesn’t.” He said quickly, and he could tell without seeing himself that his face was turning red. 

“Yes it does,” She smiled wider, and Juno cursed under his breath. It was both in regards to his slip of the tongue and Alessandra’s persistence when it came to finding out information she really wanted. That was something he’d always admired about her, in a small way. Once she found something she wanted she latched onto it and wouldn’t stop until she found the answer. “Who?”

“Nobody.” Juno insisted. It was the clearest lie he thought he had ever told. 

“That’s bullshit. Tell me!” She insisted.

Alessandra Strong wasn’t exactly the person Juno had expected to be gushing about their love lives with, but he couldn’t say that he was unhappy with that outcome. It felt nice to have someone who wasn’t Rita who was so invested in knowing easy things like that about him. Far too often it felt like people only cared about him on a surface level, and slightly less often they wanted to know all about his traumas and nothing else. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him something as stupid as his favourite colour or how much he enjoyed school as a kid or pestered him for information on something as inconciquential as crushes. It was the kind of knowing someone that he’d always wanted but never had, not really. Not outside of Rita and Ben.

“His name is Peter, and that’s all I’m telling you.” He said, half because he wanted to and half because he wanted to hear himself say it out loud. 

Juno was in love with Peter Nureyev. That wasn’t something he’d admitted before, not really, and he had to fight with himself to keep from smiling like a giddy school girl at the fact that he said it. It was something he’d known deep down for a while, but it was never an idea he’d become fully acquainted with, not until recently, and it was exhilarating to finally recognize it in a way that felt so official, so permanent. He hadn’t said he loved someone like that in a long, long time, and sure, maybe he hadn’t said it exactly, but he’d still said it. It was more than just a thought at the back of his mind that he plagued himself with when he was trying to sleep. It was out in the universe for whatever higher deity may exist to know, and he loved it. 

Kai and Nureyev’s voice were coming faintly from down the hall, and Juno felt infinitely better knowing that they were both alright. He couldn’t make out any of the words that they were saying, but it didn’t matter to him, not really. They were all alive and that’s all that counted. The pair of them were sitting on the floor of Arthur’s lab when they came around the corner, their guards both up, and the tension visibly left them when they saw who it was. Neither of them looked hurt past a couple of scrapes and bruises and it set Juno’s anxieties at ease to see them in front of him, Nureyev especially. He caught his eye as he looked them over and he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a breath in relief.

“Peter.” He breathed, and a small smile took over the man's face. 

Alessandra made a small, shocked noise behind him, and she raised her eyebrows when he turned to look at her. “Really? Him?”

Juno smiled sheepishly at her. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Peter said, confusion clear in his tone. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Juno said, finally moving out of the doorway so that Alessandra could enter the room as well. The lab had a plethora of bad memories attached to it, and he tried not to think about them too much as he made his way over to Nureyev. He considered the bits of broken glass on the floor before deciding it was worth the sacrifice of his knees and kneeling down next to him, looking him over again and again for any sign of injury further than a bruise. “I’m glad you’re okay.” 

“I could say the same about you.” Peter said. His voice sounded so incredibly fond that it could have made Juno cry had the circumstances been any different. 

As it were, however, he had another person he needed to check on, and his eye widened a fraction as he looked over at Kai and took in the state of her. Physically she looked fine, but her glassy eyes and the redness of her cheeks told him there was more going on to it than that. “Are you okay?”

She smiled, and it looked incredibly fake if you knew what to look for. “Peachy.”

“Find anything interesting?” Alessandra asked. For a moment Juno had almost forgotten she was there, though that felt ridiculous once he realized it. 

“I did, actually.” Kai said quickly, grabbing a notebook off of the ground in front of her. She seemed eager to change the subject, and that only fueled Juno’s suspicion that something was wrong. 

She kept her eyes trained on the notebook as she walked across the room to one of the cabinets that was still standing. It was the medicine cabinet that Arthur would have protected with his life, and a quick stab to the lock with a stiletto had her inside in seconds. She rooted around inside, glancing back between the shelves and the notebook a couple of times as she did so before making a sound of triumph and pulling out two glass tubes of blue liquid. After that she grabbed a couple of syringes and set her collection on the hospital bed in the middle of the room. 

“What are you doing?” Alessandra asked, pushing herself off the wall and walking further into the room cautiously. 

Kai smiled as she tossed the notebook down on the bed as well. “Something incredibly stupid. Care to join, Juno?”

She looked at him and her smile became a little more genuine. Juno was moving before he could even consider stopping himself, standing opposite her and looking between her and the collection of supplies she’d gathered on the table. He was curious, he would admit, and even though he had no idea what she was planning he knew he couldn’t say no to her. He’d never been able to and he likely never would. 

“What is it?” He asked.

“Do you trust me?” She dodged the question, and he recognized it easily as something she did when she was nervous. He didn’t know what she had to be nervous about, part of him not wanting to find out at all, but he answered regardless.

“Always.” He said simply. Whatever she was doing she had to have a good reason for it, he knew her well enough to know that, and he did trust her. He trusted her more than almost anyone. 

She smiled at him and grabbed one of the syringes, sucking some of the liquid in one of the tubes into it with a practiced ease. “Great.” 

“Would you care to explain what, exactly, you’re injecting yourselves with?” Nureyev asked pointedly. He sounded nervous, possibly even scared. It was strange to see him scared, and it almost made Juno reconsider going along with Kai’s plan. He wasn’t given time to back out before she handed him one of the syringes. 

She shrugged, not looking up at any of them as she filled the other syringe. “Don’t know. And if I did I don’t think you’d believe me.” 

It was clear to him that she was lying, but nobody else seemed to be aware of that fact. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Alessandra snapped. She also looked nervous, bouncing from foot to foot slightly where she stood. 

Kai didn’t answer her. Instead she lined the syringe up with her arm, looking up from it at Juno for the first time in what felt like ages. He followed after her, trying not to let his discomfort show on his face. This felt far too much like a bad habit he’d squashed a long time ago for him to truly be okay with it, but he knew he was going to follow her lead regardless. She seemed to know what she was doing, and that was enough for him. What’s the worst that could happen anyway? The prick of the needle piercing through his arm sent a familiar feeling through him that he fought to keep down, letting his eye drift from his arm to Kai to Nureyev, who was watching the entire scene with a look of thinly veiled horror and completely clear concern. Juno watched his eyes widen and his body move forward suddenly, but he didn’t feel his own head hit the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my name is Jay and I'm a terrible author who made you wait an extra week for the chapter so I'm giving it to you one day early to try and make up for that
> 
> This was a Long One but I hope you found it satisfying. We got a Juno and Alessandra chat, some Kai backstory, and absolutely no context for the mysterious liquid. Juno's having Big Boy Feelings guys. How are we feeling about Kai now? Any ideas what Arthur might be up to? Should the Carte Blanche crew adopt Alessandra as an honorary member? Let me know what you think, I really love reading your guys's comments and they're pretty much the only reason I know I'm gonna finish this. 
> 
> Quarantine still has me depressed as hell but I bring you yet another vent chapter anyway. Making Juno sad is the only way I can deal with my emotions these days tbh. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy and relatively sane during this entire ordeal 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors you find so that I can fix them

Juno and Kai woke up screaming on opposite sides of the ship. Peter hadn’t gone further from Juno’s side than the chair beside his bed since he and Alessandra had managed to drag the two of them back to the Carte Blanche, so it took him mere seconds to be next to him. Every one of them felt like they lasted too long. He could hear the other member of the crew in the hall, Jet and Buddy both pacing back and forth and Vespa and Rita gently trying to ease their worries despite the clear fact that they, too, were concerned. Alessandra had stayed with Kai, and though Peter could tell she would have much preferred staying with Juno he knew she could see he wasn’t willing to leave him. Buddy had been understandably furious when Peter and a stranger walked onto the ship with two unconscious crew members, though she calmed down about part of it at least when Rita explained who Alessandra was and why they trusted her. Jet seemed like he was going to worry himself sick, though he was doing a somewhat good job of hiding it, and Peter couldn’t help but remember their conversation and his small confessions about how much he cared for each member of the crew. 

Air didn’t seem to want to flow into Juno’s lungs as he struggled violently for breath, his chest heaving as he gasped and scrambled for purchase against the bed. His hand found Peter’s arm and he had it in a death grip in seconds, though Peter didn’t care in the slightest about the bruises it was sure to leave. He moved one hand to comb through Juno’s hair in confort, letting the lady take a moment to compose himself. His breathing was wet and ragged, but it meant he was alive, and Peter was more than willing to accept that. Juno’s eye locked onto him and he let out a rough sob, fighting to sit up before throwing his arms around Peter’s neck and pulling him tightly to him. Peter went willingly, wrapping his arms around the lady just as tightly and pressing his face against his curls. 

“Nureyev.” He gasped, his breath tickling his skin where his face was buried in his shoulder. 

“Juno.” He breathed in return, and Juno let out another sob.

“Nureyev,” He said again, pulling his arms tighter around him and bringing them impossibly closer. “Nureyev. Nureyev Nureyev Nureyev.” 

He repeated his name over and over again, his voice low and gentle against his shoulder, and Peter couldn’t do anything but hold him. Juno’s hands were twisted tightly in the fabric of his shirt, his entire body shaking from what he only assumed was a mixture of overwhelming shock and the strain of holding onto him so tightly. Peter smoothed his hand up and down Juno’s back, tracing gently over the rise and fall of his spine and the dip of his lower back, sweeping his thumb in circles over places he knew held scars and marks from long forgotten events. He kept his other hand firmly planted in the middle of his back, occasionally pulling at the fabric between his fingers but otherwise making no move to let go of him. He didn’t know if he was helping, but as Juno’s shaking slowly started to stop he liked to think he’d at least had a small part in that. Juno repeated his name until it didn’t sound like a word anymore, and when he finally pulled away to look at him again he mouthed it a couple of times, no sound leaving him but the impact hitting Peter just as harshly. 

“You gave us quite the scare, detective.” Peter said softly, trying not to focus on the way Juno ran his thumb over his collarbone as he held onto his shoulder. 

“I’m not a detective anymore.” Juno mumbled, though he seemed to be paying more attention to Peter’s shoulder than the words he was saying. 

“Are you quite sure you’re alright, Juno?” Peter asked. He was trying his best not to let his concern seep into his tone, but when Juno finally looked up at him he could tell from his expression that he’d failed. 

Juno had moved to the edge of the bed, his knees level with Peter’s stomach, and when he fully looked up at him his hair brushed against his nose for a moment. He was close enough that Peter could feel his shallow breaths fanning across his face, and when Juno grinned he swore it could have blinded him. 

“Peter Nureyev,” He said softly, tapping his finger against his chest as he held his gaze. “You’re real.” 

“Oh Juno.” Peter sighed, and he swept him into another hug. 

“I can remember again.” Juno said, his voice coming out with a wet laugh, and Peter squeezed him tighter at the sound of it. His body was shaking again, but it wasn’t out of shock or fear, not this time. This time it was because he was laughing, and the sound of it filled Peter with so much love for the lady in his arms that he felt he could burst. 

“Mistah Steel!” 

Juno pulled away from Peter quickly at that, though he kept one hand on his shoulder as he turned around to grin at Rita and Jet, who were standing in the doorway and both looked rather relieved to see Juno up again. He practically scrambled off of the bed when he saw who it was, all but throwing himself at Rita when he made it over to her on shaky legs. She accepted the embrace easily, whispering something to him Peter couldn’t hear that prompted him to hug her tighter to him. 

“You’re fired.” He mumbled into her hair in response. 

“You cannot fire her when she no longer works for you.” Jet said, watching the two of them curiously. 

Juno laughed a bit as he pulled away from Rita, keeping his arm around her shoulders as he turned to face Jet. She kept herself tucked closely to his side, looking at him like she didn’t dare move away for fear that he’d fall apart entirely. Peter couldn’t blame her. There’d been so many events in Juno’s life that she hadn’t been present for, so many times he’d disappeared for weeks on end only to show up again buried in traumas she knew nothing about, and they all knew how truthful he was about his mental state. Even if he’d been trying to get better, which Peter truly believed he was doing, none of them was fully ready to believe him yet, and he himself had said he wasn’t being completely truthful with them all of the time. Peter had seen it first had in just the short while since they’d gotten him back. Rita probably wanted to make sure she was there if he broke down from the weight of it all. They were quite the pair, the two of them. A girl who was unendingly loyal to those who earned her trust and a lady who seemed determined to push everyone who cared about him away. 

“It’s good to see you big guy.” Juno said softly, shooting Jet a smile.

Jet smiled back. "You as well. I take it you're feeling better?" 

"A little shaky, but yeah. That was," He paused for a moment, seeming to consider the best way to phrase things. "A lot." 

Peter wasn’t quite sure what Juno was implying, and it was clear from their expressions that Rita and Jet weren’t any more clued in than he was, but none of them pushed him for anything more. He considered the fact that maybe they were being too careful, treating him too much like he was breakable and something that they needed to protect, but he also didn’t think they could be blamed for that. Juno had been through far too much for the amount of years he had lived, and Peter wanted nothing more than to whisk him away and keep him somewhere where he could never be hurt again, somewhere he would be eternally comfortable and at ease. That wasn’t something Juno would want and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself from desperately wanting to shelter him from the world. He needed, and beyond deserved, a break from all the harshness of reality he had been exposed to. It was easy to recognize that that wouldn’t make him happy, though, and Peter would never do something that would make him unhappy. 

Juno was the type of lady who thrived on danger. The adrenaline of high stakes situations, the utter satisfaction from saving or helping someone, the thrill of the chase, that’s what fueled him. He wasn’t sustained by hoping from planet to planet and just existing like the rest of them were, though that wasn’t something he could be faulted for. He’d grown up that way, getting into trouble and having small adventures at every turn, and it was only natural for him to progress to bigger and better things from that. Peter had been the opposite, in a way. He had struggled so greatly growing up that he wanted nothing more than stability, something he could rely on in the highly possible event that something else in his life went wrong. That something had turned out to be thieving, but he couldn’t deny that he’d always wanted something else, a person or a place to come back to. He’d spent a long time denying it, but the more time he spent with the crew of the Carte Blanche and, more specifically, a certain brooding detective, the more he recognized that he was never going to be truly happy without it. 

“So what did the special liquid do?” Rita asked quickly. She looked like she might be about to burst with anticipation of the answer, though Peter couldn’t blame her. He was also rather curious as to what Juno and Kai had subjected themselves to. 

“It was some sort of memory stimulant or something.” Juno explained. 

Jet cocked his head slightly in confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” 

Juno huffed and scrubbed a hand down his face. The action twisted the strap of his eyepatch a bit, and Peter fought back the urge to reach out and fix it. “Look, I don’t really get it either, but one second I was shoving a needle into my arm and the next I was replaying every moment of my life like I was watching a really depressing stream or something.” 

“You’re right,” Jet said, nodding like he fully understood what Juno was talking about when the words barely seemed to register with Rita or Peter. “That is a lot.” 

Juno barked out a bitter laugh, and Rita frowned at him, tucking herself closer to his side. It would have appeared as though he hadn’t noticed at all if it weren’t for the way that his hand flexed on her shoulder to better secure her position. 

“You know, part of me doesn’t know what’s worse. Not remembering things or remembering absolutely everything.” He said. 

Peter was going to personally find and kill any and all existing higher powers for their absolute refusal to let his lady have a break, he decided. “I’d say they’re equally as bad.”

Juno turned to look at him and caught his eye, watching him steadily as though he was trying to memorize every detail of his face. He looked so incredibly tired and Peter wanted so desperately to lift the weight of the world from his shoulders, even if it was just for a moment, so that he could rest. It was the least he felt he could do, but he knew it was a burden Juno would never let him take on. Selfless to a fault, he was. He’d take a shot to the chest to make sure someone else didn’t have to, and Peter both loved and hated that about him. He slipped his arm away from Rita and paced over to the other side of the room, leaning back against the bed and staring at the ceiling in thought. His lips moved ever so slightly as he counted the tiles. 

“Seeing my entire life back like that, it’s just,” He inhaled deeply, adamantly refusing to look at any of them as he spoke. Talking about his feelings was a very new concept for Juno, and nobody could blame him for finding it uncomfortable. Just the fact that he was doing it at all was a step in the right direction, after all. “It’s like I can’t figure out who that person is. I know every single thing I’ve ever done, yet I still have no idea who I am. How stupid is that?”

He huffed out the last part with a laugh, and Rita looked at him with an unreadable expression. “Well that’s okay boss, cause I know exactly who you are.”

Juno looked up from where his eyes were trained on the floor to watch Rita instead. “You do?”

She hummed in confirmation, marching across the room and pushing herself up so she was on the bed next to Juno. Even when she was sitting and he was standing she still looked so incredibly tiny. 

“You’re the bravest, strongest lady I’ve ever met, Mistah Steel, and you can’t figure that out because you can’t say anything nice about yourself no matter how hard you try. And I don’t get that, you know, cause you’re awfully nice to the rest of us, and it doesn’t seem that hard to be just as nice to yourself, but that’s not the point. The point is, boss, that you’re the best person I know, and that’s not something I say lightly, I’ll have you know. You’re always trying to help everyone, even if it gets you into trouble and you come back missing an eye, and that makes you a good person. The best person, as far as I’m concerned. And I’m not gonna let my best friend sit here and talk about himself like he isn’t the best darn thing to ever happen to me, so you cut that out right now. It doesn’t matter what bad things you may be focusing on, cause I know you and I know that’s what you’re doing, you’re still my Juno Steel, and he’s great, boss, the absolute best.” 

Rita looked rather proud of herself when she finished, staring down Juno with a steely determination in her eyes as he visibly tried to process everything he had just been told. It seemed impossible for someone as small as her to hold so much love for one person in her body, but she continued to prove that idea wrong day after day. Juno looked at her like he couldn’t quite believe it either, and instead of answering her he simply turned and rested his head on her shoulder, letting her wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him into a strange sort of side hug that looked equal parts uncomfortable and comforting in the way it was executed. 

“She’s right you know,” Buddy’s voice came from the doorway. Her hair was tied up and she looked incredibly relieved to see Juno up and moving. “You’re quite extraordinary, Juno.”

Juno grumbled incoherently into Rita’s shoulder in response, but Buddy seemed to accept it, moving further into the room towards Jet. Vespa, Kai, and Alessandra trailed in after her, and Peter couldn’t help but note how tired they all looked. 

“An extraordinary pain in the ass, maybe.” Alessandra huffed, though there was no real heat behind it. Juno didn’t move his face from Rita’s shoulder, instead just flipping her off and getting a small burst of laughter from the group. 

Kai came to stand next to Peter, and his chest squeezed painfully at the sight of her. She looked exhausted, the bags under her eyes more prominent than they had ever been. Her nails were digging into her arms where they were crossed against her chest, and her entire body seemed to be shaking softly. She kept her gaze trained on Juno, and the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease a little bit at the sight of him, but it came back in full once she moved her eyes away. 

“Are you alright?” Peter asked softly, looking down at her with nothing but concern. 

She turned to look at him and gave him a quick, flat smile. Any and all light that had been in her eyes earlier had seemed to dull since he had last seen her. “No.” 

He didn’t say anything else, simply shuffling a bit closer and letting his arm press against hers. There was no more contact between them, just that small strip of skin, but it seemed to be enough to ease some of her nerves. She let out a shaky breath, closing her eyes tightly. Her skin was ice cold against his. Juno removed himself from Rita’s shoulder with a long groan, pushing himself up onto the bed to sit next to her and give his legs a rest. He still looked rather shaky, but better than he had earlier. 

“I think I’ve figured some stuff out.” He said, and that caught the attention of the rest of the room quickly. 

“We’re listening, darling.” Buddy said. She reached out and grabbed Vespa’s hand tightly in hers, though she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. 

Juno took a deep breath before turning to face Rita. “How many of our notes on the THEIA do you still have?” 

Rita, Peter, and Kai all flinched slightly at the mention, but nobody else gave any other indication that they knew what he was talking about. Alessandra raised an eyebrow at him. 

“You mean your eye?” She asked. 

“It was a little more than that, actually.” Juno said, giving her a sympathetic smile.

“You think this has something to do with the THEIA?” Jet asked, and Juno looked at him curiously. 

“You know?” He asked. 

“Rita confided in me about it,” He said simply, and Rita looked a little embarrassed about that fact. “And I would like to make it known that should anyone ever attempt to cause you that type of pain again I will personally make sure they never get the chance.” 

It was Juno’s turn to blush at that, huffing out a small laugh. “Thanks big guy. I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“That doesn’t answer the question, though.” Buddy pointed out, and Juno nodded. 

“Right, sorry. I don’t think Arthur has anything to do with the THEIA, no, but I think the gaps in my memory did. There was this part of having it, the Emotional Danger Avoidance Protocol. It wouldn’t let me remember certain things, like Rita, for example.” Juno explained. 

“You don’t have the soul anymore though.” Rita said. She looked worried, more so than any of the rest of them, and Peter supposed that was because she was actually there for the entire ordeal. 

He nodded. “Right, but there might have been some sort of lasting effect. And the memory stimulants, that’s another thing. They were specific to each person. I remember Arthur explaining it to me before he gave it to me once, though thinking back on that it was probably a load of bullshit. He gave me mine and I woke up missing half of my memories, and I think remembering everything at once might have been too much and glitched out the remaining bit of the EDA in my head.” 

“It makes sense, and something like THEIA technology is bound to have some sort of side effects when it’s removed.” Vespa said, though she sounded like she was talking more to herself than anything else. 

“That doesn’t explain our,” Kai cut herself off, squeezing her eyes closed and digging her nails harder into her arms. “Problem, though.”

Juno shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world to explain. “Simple, Arthur gave you mine. He had you couldn’t use a supplement intended for someone else, and I bet that’s exactly what you ended up doing.” 

“Clever bastard.” Kai scoffed. There was less heat behind it than there should have been. 

“We’ll look into this and see if it gives us any more information. Juno, Kai, I don’t want either of you working on this until you’re back in peak physical condition. Peter and Rita will stay with you, but they’re still expected to get some semblance of work done, so don’t distract them too much.” Buddy instructed. 

She thankfully chose to ignore the topic of Juno and Kai’s problem, but Vespa didn’t look like she was ready to let it go. She didn’t say anything either though, and Peter was more grateful for her than he’d ever say. Part of his reluctance to voice his appreciation was the fact that she seemed likely to stab him for daring to bring the idea up, but he tried not to think about that too much. One by one people slowly started to trickle out of the room until it was just Peter and Juno left. Rita had gone with Kai, promising Juno that she would be back to check on him later, and with her departure the two were left in silence. Juno fiddled with the hem of his shirt, twisting the fabric between his fingers, and Peter couldn’t help but be reminded of their days in the tomb by it. He shook that thought off as soon as it arrived, but it clung like putty to the inside of his skull and it took longer than it should have to vanish.

“Care for some company?” He asked, walking slowly over to the bed and gesturing to the space beside him when Juno looked up at him. 

He gave him a soft, barely there smile and nodded, scooting over a bit to give Peter more room. Their knees bumped together despite the added distance, and the small smile on Juno’s face grew a little bit more. There wasn’t much room for the two of them on the small medical bed Vespa had put him in, but they made do, and slowly but surely the space between them seemed to fall away and Juno was leaning heavily against Peter, his knees tucked up underneath him and his ear pressed right over his heart. Peter played with his hair softly to soothe him and hoped that it would help ease some of the tension in his shoulders. 

“Thank you for not leaving me.” Juno whispered, his voice barely audible over the constant hum of the ship, but Peter heard it anyway. He always heard him. 

“I’d never dream of leaving.” Peter said simply, voice dripping with sincerity, and adjusted his back against the headboard behind him so that Juno could lean more heavily against him.

He smiled softly, his eye closed and his curls hanging in a tangled mess across his forehead, and Peter decided then and there that Juno Steel was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid his eyes on. He told the lady as much, leaning down to press a kiss against his hair and mumbling the words against his scalp, and while he was positive Juno hadn’t heard him his smile spread anyway. It was easy, Peter thought, for him to decide that nothing mattered. 

Nothing, not Arthur Lazarus or memory loss or the cure mother prime, mattered as long as Juno Steel was smiling at him like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus: Jet beating up everyone who's ever looked at Juno wrong
> 
> Wow a chapter that's on time for once, who would have thought. Not gonna lie this one gave me a lot of problems and I'm not super happy with it but I'm putting it out into the world anyway. Peter loves Juno a lot, Rita and Juno are family dammit, and Kai needs a hug. There are still some things left to uncover, but everything is starting to fall into place for our team. What do you think Arthur is up to? Why was Kai so shaken up? Will these kids ever get to go see a therapist? Let me know what you think, your comments always keep me inspired to write new chapters. 
> 
> Blah blah blah safe and healthy blah blah when the fuck will quarantine end
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors that you find so I can fix them

There was a new normal about the Carte Blanche now, and if Juno was being honest, which he rarely was these days, he hated it. Kai and Alessandra were wonderful and he loved having them around, but it felt too foreign, too new, when all he felt he needed right now was familiarity. Having every single event in his life back at the front of his mind like they’d happened only minutes before was unsettling and strange, and as awful as the gaps in his memory had been he didn’t know if this was any better. Sometimes it felt worse. There’d been so many events in his life that he ached to forget, things he had buried under layers of drunken nights and too little sleep and years of pretending they never happened. He’d long since stopped waking up screaming from old nightmares, yet here they were again, plaguing him just like they had before. Blood and Benzaiten and Annie Wire and Diamond and martian dust and the THEIA Spectrum and Peter Nureyev. Nureyev’s hurt the most, because he was always right there when they happened, always easing Juno gently back into reality with soft words and even softer hands. 

Nureyev hadn’t fully left since Juno had woken up, and he didn’t know if he should be grateful for that or not. He appreciated not being alone, and he really did like spending so much time with him, but sometimes it just got to be too much. Too much talking and sitting and doing nothing when they had a doctor with a plan they couldn’t understand performing experiments on people for reasons they also couldn’t understand and they had to stop him. He didn’t know why, but he knew they had to. It was the type of gut feeling that screamed at you not to ignore it, too powerful to be beat back with any type of reasoning. Alessandra, ever prepared as she was, had stuffed her pockets full of as much paper as she could get her hands on and instructed Nureyev to do the same before they dragged him and Kai back to the ship. That had given the crew something to focus on, and while Juno and Kai were almost entirely removed from the process on account of their recent traumas Nureyev was still sometimes needed. Sometimes, in those rare moments that he was gone and Juno was left truly alone, he felt like he could breathe properly for the first time in days. He didn’t think he’d ever stop feeling guilty for that. 

Kai wasn’t doing much better than he was. As hard as she was trying to hide it Juno could see right through her, he always could, and he could see that she was just as shaken up about the entire ordeal as him. She was certainly handling it better than him, that was quite clear, but she could never easily disguise her feelings, not when it came to him. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was perceptive or because he knew her well enough or maybe even that she wasn’t trying as desperately to hide things from him as she was from the rest of the world, but whatever the answer was he could see clearly that she wasn’t doing alright. He just didn’t know how to help her, and that was tearing him in half. 

“Cred for your thoughts, detective?” Nureyev asked. 

Juno blinked a couple of times before looking up at him. He was leaning against the wall at the head of Juno’s bed, his hair lightly ruffled and his lips curved up into a small, easy smile. There was a fond and curious expression on his face as he watched Juno, who was curled up at the other end of the bed staring at the wall as he thought. Nureyev looked beautiful, as far as Juno was concerned, though he figured he might be a little biased. 

“Just overthinking, I guess.” Juno said, executing a poor imitation of a shrug from the reclined position he refused to leave. 

Nureyev seemed to understand that, and he shut the book he was reading gently and set it on the table beside the bed. “Anything in particular?” 

He shook his head, looking at him over the folds of the blanket he had draped over him that partially obscured his vision. “Anything you wanna know?” 

“I’m sorry?” Nureyev asked, arching an eyebrow in confusion. 

“Well, I can remember everything now,” Juno explained, shuffling around a bit until he was laying with his head on top of Nureyev’s outstretched legs and he could see him better without the blanket in the way. “This is the most I’ll probably ever be able to tell you. Ask me something.”

He seemed to consider that for a moment, clearly weighing his potential questions in his head. Juno tapped absentmindedly on his leg as he did so. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was debating. There were plenty of things he didn’t know about Juno that he clearly wanted to, but with everything having been brought back to him so suddenly he didn’t want his questions to poke at any newly reopened wounds. Juno was honestly a little bit sick of everyone walking on eggshells around him these days, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with Nureyev for it. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that fact. 

“That blanket looks homemade.” Nureyev said, clearly finally deciding that his chosen topic wouldn’t be too painful for anyone involved. 

Juno nodded against his leg. “It is.”

“Where did you get it from?” Nureyev asked. He sounded genuinely curious, and Juno couldn’t help but find it rather endearing that of all things to pique his interest it had been a blanket. 

“Mick’s grandma. First time ma ever forgot to pay the heating bill, Ben and I showed up on his doorstep freezing our asses off, and she let us stay the night without any questions. Stayed up all night to make us the warmest blankets possible in case it ever happened again.” He twisted the blanket around between his fingers as he spoke, huffing out a small laugh at the memory. 

“She sounds like a lovely woman.” Nureyev mused, and Juno couldn’t help but let out a proper laugh at that.

“She was. God, that woman put up with more shit from us than she needed to. Didn’t get a single question from her when I let Mick pierce my nose in his bathroom and left with a nose ring I didn’t have when I got there.” 

Nureyev laughed as well at that, and Juno hid a small smile in the folds of his blanket at the sound of it. “I must admit it’s nice to know you had good people in your life growing up.” 

“Old town wasn’t all bad.” He attempted to shrug again, and Nureyev huffed out a laugh when he bumped his shoulder into his leg. 

“I suppose it wasn’t,” Nureyev agreed. “You did have Benzaiten, after all, and your friends.”

Juno wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, but he wasn’t given the chance. There was a soft knock at his door and before he could even think to respond to it it was sliding open, Kai on the other side looking far more put together than she had any right to. Nureyev straightened up immediately at the sight of her, but this time he could tell it wasn’t out of suspicion. Concern seemed like the more appropriate word. It was both nice and strange to see the two of them getting along so well, and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. He had no idea where the change had come from which meant he had no idea whether or not he should be concerned about the change in their dynamic, but at the same time he was grateful that the semi permanent tension that seemed to hang in the air between the two of them for so long had finally faded. 

“Peter Nureyev, you’ve been summoned.” Kai said easily as she walked into the room, letting the door slide closed behind her. Juno sat bold up right immediately, and Nureyev laughed lightly beside him. 

“It’s alright, detective. I’m aware that she knows.” He assured him. 

Juno looked between the two of them a couple of times. “You do?” 

Nureyev nodded. “I do. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but I understand that it was outside of your control.” 

“I wanted to tell you,” Juno said quickly. “I promise, I did, I just didn’t know how to say it and I didn’t want you to be mad at me and-”

“Juno, it’s alright. I’m not mad.” He cut him off, placing a hand over his on the bed in reassurance. Juno looked between Nureyev’s face and his hand on his, tracing over the curve of the back of it and the shine of his precisely applied nail polish as he let his mind fight itself over whether or not he should believe that. 

“You should go see Buddy.” He said, his deflection while he attempted to process his new knowledge clear but thankfully unacknowledged. 

Nureyev sighed and made a show out of pushing himself up off the bed, stretching his arms over his head and letting his back pop in the process. Kai winced at the sound of it, and he shot her a smile that said he felt absolutely no remorse. He gave them a short, quick bow as he opened the door to step out of the room. “Ladies.” 

Kai kept her eyes trained on the door long after it closed and Nureyev’s footsteps had faded into silence down the hallway. Juno watched her carefully as she stared, and she whipped around quick enough that it startled him, a bright grin on her face when she came to face him. She moved over to the bed in a couple of long strides and collapsed down on it next to Juno, the smile still on her face as she looked up at him. It was a mischievous smile, one that he’d seen many times before, and he knew that whatever came out of her mouth was going to be something he didn’t want to hear.

“He likes you.” She said matter of factly, and Juno felt his face heat up.

He turned away from her so that she wouldn’t see the blush that was no doubt rising on his cheeks, but he knew she was well aware of it anyway. “Shut up.” 

“Never.” She grinned, shoving him lightly in the shoulder. He shoved her back and she laughed, flopping down backwards so she was properly laying down. 

She spun her wedding ring around on her finger absentmindedly as she stared up at the ceiling, and Juno felt a pang of something he couldn’t have placed a name to no matter how hard he tried shoot through his lungs. They still wore their rings. It had become such a habit when they had constantly been around her family for them not to take them off, and that was bleeding into their lives on the Carte Blanche as well. He didn’t think he had taken his off since he’d arrived on the ship again. He didn’t think Kai had either. Juno, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t an idiot. He saw the way the crew looked at the two of them sometimes, saw the way Rita or Nureyev’s eyes would linger too long on his ring when it caught their attention and how they’d look like they were holding themselves back from saying a hundred things about it. He glanced down at it where his hand was resting in his lap, and the sight of it sent another pang of that nameless feeling through him. 

“Kai?” He asked suddenly, a little unsure of what he wanted to say but knowing it had to be something.

“Juno.” She replied, turning her head to look at him instead of moving the rest of her body. Her hair stuck to her cheek a bit where her face pressed against it. 

“After all of this,” He waved his hand vaguely for emphasis, his ring catching the light for a second in the process. He swallowed thickly. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

Kai furrowed her brow, pushing herself up on her elbow and tilting her head a bit in confusion. Juno was always reminded of a puppy when she did that. “What do you mean?” 

“Just, who are we gonna be?” He asked, shaking his head once he’d said it. It wasn’t coming out the way he wanted it to, though he wasn’t sure what way that was either. These types of thoughts were always hard to articulate, and now that he’d had his head thoroughly scrambled by a memory altering scientist he was finding it even more of a struggle to put thoughts into words that made any sense. 

“We’ll be us.” Kai said simply, confusion clear in her tone. 

Juno shook his head again. “But who are we? What are we?”

She opened her mouth to respond before closing it again, clearly starting to understand what, exactly, Juno was trying to ask her. He supposed it must be harder for her now, without their strange mental link, to understand his indistinct ramblings. Part of him felt like she deserved an award just for putting up with it, but he knew she’d never agree to that. 

“What do you want us to be?” She asked, and he had to pause to think about that for a moment.

What did he want them to be? He knew he wanted her around, that much was clear to him, but as what? They’d never truly been more than friends, the entire couple act purely for the sake of her family and nobody else, but it had been nice, in a strange way. Feeling wanted was such a strange feeling to Juno, who always felt like he was burdening those around him with his presence, but he had never once felt like that with Kai. For a while he had thought it was love, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that it wasn’t, at least not in that way. But that didn’t change the fact that there was a very real possibility her feelings extended past his, and he didn’t want to do anything that could possibly hurt her. He was sure he could learn to love her, if that’s what she truly wanted, though the idea of it made him feel slightly ill.

“I want us to be what we’ve always been.” He said after a while. It was a cop out answer and he knew, and Kai clearly wasn’t going to settle for it. She sat up fully, crossing her legs and turning so she was facing him directly. He couldn’t help but feel rather exposed. 

“Juno, are you asking me to marry you?” She asked, her tone completely serious, and for a moment he thought it was a joke before he looked up at her and realized that it wasn’t. 

“Would that really be so bad?” He asked. “I mean, we’ve been Juno and Kai for so long that I don’t know how we’d even be anything else.” 

Kai looked at him for a long, long moment, her expression completely unreadable, and Juno was just about to ask what she was thinking when she spoke again. “You’d be miserable.” 

He sputtered for a moment, unsure of what he was supposed to say to that. “What?”

“You’d be absolutely miserable if you married me because you’re so in love with Peter Nureyev that you’d never be able to get over him.” She said simply, giving him a small, sad smile that told him she knew she was right. He knew she was too, but he didn’t want to admit it, not to himself or to her. 

“Kai-” He started, but she cut him off. 

“You’ve got a good thing going with Peter, love, and I know you wanna continue with it.” She said, and Juno felt his heart drop.

“I don’t wanna do that to you.” He insisted.

She looked at him like she didn’t know what he was saying, but the moment she realized was clear and a small, breathy laugh pushed out of her throat. “I am not in love with you, Juno Steel.”

He blinked. “You’re not?”

“No.” She said, shaking her head and laughing more fully this time. Juno couldn’t help but feel like a bit of an idiot, though he was also feeling rather relieved. A blush rose on his cheeks as she continued to laugh, and he reached behind him to grab one of his pillows and toss it at her. 

“Shut up.” He huffed, and that only served to make her laugh harder for a moment before she settled down. 

“Look, maybe at one point I did have some sort of feelings for you, but I don’t anymore. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, and I know you won’t be with me. Frankly, I don’t think I’d be happy with you either. We’re just not meant to be like that.” She reached over and took his hand, linking her fingers through his and squeezing tightly. 

He fiddled with her ring as he thought, keeping his eyes on their hands instead of her face because he knew how she’d look. She’d look just as kind and just as understanding as she always did with him, and he didn’t know if he could handle it just yet. “It’s what everyone expects us to do, I think. We could always try?”

Kai sighed deeply and reached over with her free hand, placing her fingers under his chin to gently turn his head. He went willingly. The look in her eyes was so undeniably kind that it made his heart ache and his stomach flip strangely, and when she let go of his chin to cup his cheek and swipe her thumb against his cheekbone he felt as though he might completely shatter there next to her. 

“Juno, you and I, we don’t deserve to sit around waiting to be loved by someone who will never love us, not like that.” She said softly, using her grip on his face to make him look at her, and he couldn’t do it anymore. He folded forward, pressing his face to her shoulder and sinking into the feeling of being held as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, placing a kiss on the top of his head gently. 

“I really needed to hear that.” He mumbled against her shirt, and she laughed lightly and pulled him closer. 

“I know.” She said, and he knew that she did. 

It was a weight off, in a way, to know that she wasn’t in love with him. He hadn’t thought she was, but he hadn’t thought she wasn’t, either. It was a fine line between the two with the act they were putting on, the game they were playing a dangerous one when it came to feelings. It was even more dangerous when it came to feelings outside the two of them, he recognized that, and he also recognized that she had once again fallen into her annoying yet endearing habit of being right about absolutely everything. He never would have been happy with her, not really. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise he knew, deep down, where his heart truly was. It had been in the same place since he handed it over unwillingly so long ago, and he hadn’t regretted it for a moment since, even if he tried to tell himself he did. 

“I think I’m in love with Nureyev.” He said, his voice so soft he almost didn’t hear himself, but Kai still heard him. She always heard him. 

“Congratulations,” She said, laughing lightly into his hair. “You’re the last person to figure that out.” 

He huffed and shoved her away, though there wasn’t much force behind it so she didn’t go far. “Shut up.” 

“For what it’s worth, I think you should tell him.” Kai said, shrugging when he looked up at her. 

“You do?” He asked, and she nodded. 

“You and I know better than we should that life is short,” She turned so that her legs were dangling over the side of the bed, her shoulder pressed against his and their hands still clasped together. “You never know when you’re gonna get another chance. Besides, I think he might be a little bit in love with you too.” 

Juno laughed and shoved his shoulder against hers. She laughed as well in response, and neither of them had to say anything else, not really. She was right and they both knew it, and while Juno was a coward when it came to emotions he was also deeply, terrifyingly in love with Peter Nureyev and that wasn’t a feeling he could keep in his chest forever. If he tried he thought he might just explode from the pure force of it trying to force its way out of him every time he was in the man's presence. They both looked up at the sound of the door sliding open, and sure enough there he was, Peter Nureyev in all his glory, standing in the middle of the doorway with an expression that looked as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was beautiful, Juno thought. 

“Am I interrupting something?” He asked, looking between Juno and Kai and then back again, his eyebrows pulling together a bit in confusion. 

Juno and Kai looked at each other, and when she grinned at him and untangled their hands he knew she knew what he was thinking about doing. “Actually Nureyev, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Nureyev looked more confused at that, watching as Kai hopped off the bed and made her way over to him, but he didn’t say anything. She grinned at him and patted him on the chest when she walked by, and once she was behind him she spun on her heel and gave Juno two thumbs up, mouthing good luck at him as she backed towards the door. She cursed when she smacked her elbow on the door frame, but otherwise played it off like it hadn’t happened. Nureyev looked at him curiously the entire time, and Juno did his absolute best to psych himself up for what he was about to do. He didn’t feel prepared in the slightest, but Kai had been right. Life was short, and if he knew himself as well as he thought he did he knew he’d never feel prepared, not really. This was as good of a moment as he was going to get, and he fully planned on taking it.

“Is something the matter?” Nureyev asked, watching as Juno slipped off the bed and took a couple of steps closer to him. 

“No,” Juno said, shaking his head as he stopped a couple of steps in front of him. “The opposite, really.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Nureyev said, giving Juno a small, apologetic smile. 

He twisted his ring around a couple of times before pulling it off his finger entirely, slipping it into his pocket. The action didn’t go unnoticed by Nureyev, who was looking more confused by the second. He couldn’t blame him. He’d probably feel much the same in his position. 

“Life is short,” He started, not quite sure where he was going with this but hoping he would find his way there anyway. “And there are so many things I wanna say to so many people, and I’m starting to realize that I leave those things too late. So I wanna tell you something now, while I know you have the time to hear it and to say something back, if you feel like it.”

Nureyev nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on Juno like he was the universe’s most confusing puzzle that he was just starting to get the pieces in the right places for. “Tell me.”

Juno took a deep breath, closing his eye for a second before exhaling and opening it again. Nureyev had to know where this was going by now. He wasn’t an idiot, far from it really, and Juno wasn’t exactly being subtle. He took another step closer, leaving him just close enough to have to look up to meet his eye but too far to feel the heat of him properly. It was a good distance, safe. 

“Peter Nureyev, I-” He cut himself off with a cough, which turned into a wheeze as he tried to catch his breath. There was a spot of blood on his hand when he pulled it back from his mouth, and he could feel even more dripping from his nose. It was a feeling he’d become well acquainted with. Nureyev scrambled forward, catching his arm when he lost his balance and preventing him from hitting the floor as he staggered. He continued coughing, and the more he did the more blood came from his mouth. 

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Nureyev asked, his voice full of panic as he took in Juno’s no doubt blood splattered face. Their minds were both going to the same place, he knew it. There’d been too many eerily similar moments to this for the two of them to ever forget. 

Juno’s knees buckled underneath him, and he held tightly to Nureyev’s shoulders as he hit the ground, gasping for breath around the blood in his throat. He didn’t know where it was coming from, and the thought of it terrified him. He’d done it again, waited too long, and for the first time in his life Juno felt that he wasn’t quite ready to die. He wasn’t too angry to die like he had been back in the freedome, he wasn’t living out of pure spite and the need to solve a case like he had been so many times before, this time he was just living, and he didn’t want that to come to an end. The thought of it shook him to his core. It was something he hadn’t realized before, and now that he had he didn’t even have time to revel in it. He clutched tighter to Nureyev’s arms, no doubt leaving bruises, and looked him in his terrified, watery eyes. 

“I don’t wanna die.” He gasped, and he didn’t get to find out what Nureyev thought of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been three weeks, but I now bring you this absolute mess of a chapter. I hope you can forgive me. We got some Juno backstory, some Juno and Kai bonding, and an answer to a question I'm sure you've all had for a while: can I make Juno suffer any more than he already has? The answer is yes, by the way. What do you think is happening to Juno? Do you think Kai was being honest with him? Will Juno and Peter ever get to talk about their feelings? Let me know what you think, it's been a while and I really miss hearing from you guys.
> 
> I'm really sorry that this took so long. Things have been really hectic in my life lately, but I will try and be more on top of updates in the future. I will, however, be having a bit of a change to my update schedule. Instead of every week this might turn into an every other week type situation, though I will still try and keep it to every week, as I have a new fic I'm working on that I'm having a lot of fun with! I doubt most of you have seen or are interested, but I've got a penumbra phantom of the opera au going right now that I'm super in love with, so if you'd like to read more of my writing or maybe just like phantom of the opera as much as I do please give it a shot! (It's called Music of the Night, and you can find it on my account or the tag pretty easily)
> 
> I'll try not to be gone for so long this time, and I hope you're all staying sane during this whole quarantine mess :)
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is A Lot but it exists and I'm really hyped to write this so stay tuned for more of this mess. 
> 
> Comments fuel my will to live so please leave me some


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